When Perfume Meets Art: Jillian Switzerland and the Renaissance of Olfactory Expression
- Jillian Switzerland
- May 5
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 15
"When art is made new, we are made new with it." – John Russell
In an age where our senses are constantly bombarded with visual and auditory stimuli, Jillian Switzerland dares to ask a different question: What if we started with scent? With its pioneering project “When Perfume Meets Art,” the eco-luxury fragrance house opens a new dimension in the experience of both fragrance and fine art—placing olfaction, the most primal and emotional of the senses, at the very center of artistic exploration.
This initiative is not simply about showcasing perfume as art. It’s about allowing scent to become a language—one that artists across disciplines can translate, echo, or reimagine in their own medium. From visual installations and photography to sculpture and performance, the project invites contemporary creators to engage with fragrance not just as inspiration, but as material: molecular, emotional, and immersive.
Scent as Medium, Not Metaphor
As early as 1913, Italian futurist Carlo Carrà declared in The Painting of Sounds, Noises, Smells that olfaction belonged alongside visual and auditory art. And yet, for much of the 20th century, scent remained on the periphery—acknowledged, but seldom embraced. It wasn’t until the close of the century that artists began to use smell as seriously and consistently as paint or sound, sparking what some now recognize as a new artistic movement: Olfactism.
In this renewed context, “When Perfume Meets Art” feels both timely and visionary. Jillian Switzerland’s signature fragrances act not as accessories to art—but as its foundation. They are the raw materials from which stories unfold.
On November 19, 2022, Jillian Switzerland unveiled its first limited-edition fragrance from the When Perfume Meets Art project—Come Out—at an exhibition that marked the brand’s very first artistic collaboration. The scent was born from a dialogue between two creators: contemporary Vietnamese artist Lê Kinh Tài, with his emotionally charged painting Whoever I Am, and perfumer Mirella Pomina, whose compositions are known for their tender complexity. Together, they shaped a fragrance that speaks not just of transformation, but of the courage it takes to be seen. Raw yet luminous, Come Out is the olfactory translation of Lê Kinh Tài’s deeply personal reflections—on solitude, on youth, on the long road to self-acceptance. It begins with a quiet strength, then gradually opens into something fuller, bolder, and beautifully unresolved—like becoming yourself, over and over again.
Crafted by two world-renowned perfumers—Mark Buxton and David Chieze—the duo Intangible and Fall in Lust represents the highest forms of olfactory expression within Jillian Switzerland’s artistic universe. Though composed individually, the two fragrances have since been intertwined through Maika Elan’s storytelling as part of a shared olfactory-visual journey.
Fall in Lust, composed by Chieze, is a sensory embrace of nature’s wildness and memory’s pull. It strikes first with a spark of fresh, pungent pepper, then folds into a tangle of spices and warmth. What lingers is earthy and intimate—the scent of longing, of nostalgia, of something almost remembered.
Intangible, created by Buxton, drifts in the opposite direction: a fragrance of absence and presence, visible only through feeling. To give it form, Jillian Switzerland invited visual artist and photographer Maika Elan to document the scent’s emotional trail across Europe using her signature lomography. Each analog frame—blurry, dreamlike, imperfect—becomes a window into moments suspended in scent. Together, these two fragrances offer a new way to encounter perfume—not just through the nose, but through the eyes and the heart. One rooted in earth, one floating in air. One remembered, one imagined.
From Molecules to Meaning
Olfactory art is not mere experimentation. It is a profound act of meaning-making. Scent bypasses rational thought. It slips into our subconscious, touching memory, instinct, and emotion. It becomes myth, metaphor, and memory all at once. This is the power Jillian Switzerland taps into—inviting artists to sculpt with the invisible, to draw with atmosphere, to build with breath.
A New Movement for a New Medium
Today, more institutions, museums, and art schools are recognizing the power of scent. From exhibitions like Belle Haleine – The Scent of Art, There’s Something in the Air, and DUFT, to specialized research centers and courses on olfactory design, scent is no longer a fringe curiosity. It is a frontier. As with photography and video in decades past, olfaction is becoming part of the visual arts mainstream. And yet, its full integration remains rare—which is why “When Perfume Meets Art” feels so vital. It challenges long-standing sensory hierarchies. It affirms what artists and perfumers have always known: a fragrance can be a painting. A whiff can be a revolution.
Jillian Switzerland: A Platform for Sensory Storytelling
In this evolving ecosystem, Jillian Switzerland is more than a perfume house. It is a platform for artists, noses, and storytellers alike. With every curated collaboration, the brand bridges the worlds of fine fragrance and contemporary art—not to blur boundaries, but to dissolve them. Because in this world, the brush is invisible, the canvas is air, and the gallery is your skin.
Sources of inspiration and reference:
“The Complexity of Olfactory Art – The Use of Scent as Concept and Context in the Work of Art,” Amfiteater, Dec 2021 (DOI: 10.51937/Amfiteater-2021-2/68-83)
“Scent: Olfactory Art – A New Genre,” Psychology Today
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