Inside the threeASFOUR fashion show at the Jewish Museum during Fashion Week, the first thing you noticed was the smell: a heavy, exotic perfume hanging in the air. As models walked the runway, the scent melded into the scene until it was as much a part of the show as the clothes.
From choosing just the right venue to choosing the perfect smell, nothing happens by accident in the production of a fashion show. Welcome to the heavily perfumed world of “scent branding.”
While scent branding isn’t confined to the fashion crowd — it’s also used in casinos, hotel chains, stadiums, clubs and retail — it’s become a particularly sexy way to brand fashion retail stores, events and parties. Smells, often custom-designed to the brand, are used to evoke a happy mood, causing the customer to linger, hopefully creating brand loyalty or at least a memorable experience. The scent is diffused through a small box that blows air, or in larger spaces may be pumped through an air- ventilation system.
According to fashion legend, the practice started with Coco Chanel in 1921. To promote her new perfume No. 5, she spritzed it on her rich and connected friends at a dinner party.
Scent marketing has gotten a lot more sophisticated since then. But why are background smells so important?
“Scents have a way of working in the background of our consciousness and can affect mood, for better or worse,” says Leslie Vosshall, a professor of neurogenetics at the Rockefeller University in New York.
“Scents are very potent at forming associations in our brains, the stuff of memory,” she says. “If a certain hotel lobby is perfumed with something lovely, and the experience you have there is fantastic, the next time you check into a hotel of the same brand — even if it is across the world — the good memories of your last stay will come flooding back,” says Vosshall.
Companies range from the corporate (like ScentAir, IFF and Prolitec) to the boutique, like New York’s 12.29. The olfactive branding company often works with fashion designers to create a custom scent for runway shows.
12.29, founded by twins Dawn and Samantha Goldworm, did their first fashion show in 2009 with Rodarte. They’ve since handled fragrances on the runways of Jason Wu, Chadwick Bell, Zac Posen and Thakoon.
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