LONDON — What does literature smell like? There are probably as many answers as there are books, and the perfumer Timothy Han has a few of his own.
Han is making a comeback with a collection of perfumes inspired by the “mood” of books he believes have impacted culture and society over the last 150 years.
The collection is called Imprint, and the fragrances are packaged in boxes resembling paperback books, with original artwork on the cover. The boxes are designed to be collected, kept and displayed, and can be shelved sideways, like books.
Han refers to Imprint as a “perfume publishing house,” with stories written in scent “that unfold on your skin like pages in a novel.”
The debut collection features six fragrances named after the book titles: Against Nature, by Joris-Karl Huysmans; She Came to Stay, by Simone de Beauvoir; On the Road, by Jack Kerouac; The Decay of the Angel, by Yukio Mishima; Nadja, by André Breton, and Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad.
Imprint’s On the Road fragrance inspired by the Jack Kerouac novel.
They will launch at Dover Street Market Paris in late October, priced at 164 pounds for a 50-ml. bottle, while the website is set to go live soon for preorders.
Han, who earlier in his career worked in the design studio with John Galliano, Issey Miyake and Koji Tatsuno, will be a familiar name to many. He had an eponymous line of candles, and later fragrances, which Han shelved during the pandemic. His scents were sold at places including Browns, Corso Como, Liberty and Mr Porter.
He also works on bespoke projects, and created the scent for The Peninsula London’s collection of in-room bath products as part of its “Best of British” partnership scheme, as well as for Lady Gaga and high net worth private clients.
Han isn’t a trained perfumer — he studied architecture in London — but he works closely with noses to create scents which can strike people as “unsettling, polarizing and unusual — and that’s what I like,” he said during an interview.
Han is not bound to the traditional array, or hierarchy, of notes, and thinks instead of the mood he wants to conjure.
Imprint’s Against Nature fragrance, inspired by Joris-Karl Huysmans’ book.
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With On the Road, he wanted smells that evoked a trip across America: “burnt rubber, the hot tarmac of New York City in July, midwestern wheat fields, jazz, whisky and the Pacific Coast,” Han said. By contrast, She Came to Stay has a more domestic air, with notes of basil, lemon, vetiver and unexpected jolts of clove and oak moss.
Han said he wanted The Decay of the Angel to capture “birth, death and reincarnation, with the smell of sex, sweat and ash, and intensity of flowers that have been around too long.” It’s actually not as dark as it sounds, and smells more like freshly cut flowers.
In Against Nature, Han played with Huysmans’ obsession with adding an artificial patina to the natural world. It’s his first synthetic scent and has “bright green sapling notes mixed with metal, lacquer and blood.” Heart of Darkness has the more natural scent of “damp river banks, wet leaves, coal and ivory.”
Han plans to build his library of fragrances and create a “cultural platform.” There are plans for a book club, collaborations with writers and artists, and “unusual activations.” He sees the website as part-magazine, part-library and a platform for essays, interviews, recommendations “and reflections on scent and storytelling.”