Dutch studio Oak & Morrow's latest perfume-based project is an olfactory experiment into the meaning of memory

Date
24 July 2018
Above

Oak & Morrow: Revivre

From the waft of hot chip fat barrelling down a seaside promenade at the height of the best summer holiday you ever had to the unmistakable tang of a tangerine rolling around the bottom of your stocking on Christmas morning, smell has the power to ping us in to the past like little else.

Dutch strategic design studio Oak & Morrow have put that olfactory unraveling down to neural oscillation, or the way our brain produces waves with frequencies which can be measured and matched to a certain state of emotion. “Smelling a scent can trigger reliving the entire experience, bringing all of the senses together,” says Oak & Morrow’s Marten de Jongh.

With that in mind, they decided to begin investigating the possibilities of reverse engineering a situation in which a scent could be created that one could then consciously connect to a specific, meaningful moment. The result was the minimally presented perfume, Revivre.

The resulting trio of base scents – Playful, Intimate, and Healing – are then added to by the buyer, who uses the packaged perfume dispenser to collect the assorted smells of a specific moment in time, to add to the mix. The possibilities, then, are literally endless. The magic moment you capture forevermore can than be nasally relived via a porcelain oil flask and a diffuser.

Oak & Morrow describe it as a work of inventive design that, “shows the impact of meaningful interaction beyond digital platforms.” On the visual front de Jongh tells It’s Nice That, “Every element of the visual identity was based on one of the senses. In designing the pattern used on the porcelain flasks, we were inspired by a research technique used to map out acoustics. We used the same research technique for the colour and form of the dispenser.”

Share Article

About the Author

Josh Baines

Josh Baines joined It's Nice That from July 2018 to July 2019 as News Editor, covering new high-profile projects, awards announcements, and everything else in between.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.