The Letter No. 7 — the one who'd never painted

Hi Fragrant Friend 👋

You've seen Stephanie's name in here a few times. This week I want to actually introduce her.

If you're new here, a warm welcome. Some of you are joining from my old Scently Speaking letters, and I'm glad you came along. The short version: New Niche is building its first collection of fragrances, and this is the letter where they take shape.

Stephanie Saeta painted the artwork for the fragrance we've been calling The Origin of Light, the black and gold one you'll see below. It's the scent Mansour built. What still gets me is that a few years ago she wasn't a painter. About fifteen years in the corporate world, and she'd never painted before. Two months ago she moved into her first real studio.

Her, in her own words

She explains it better than I could. Two clips below, her on the left, the paint on the right.

Why her, for this one

The scent is about the movement of light. Her technique is a lot of water on fabric, guided up to a point and then left to settle on its own, so it dries into something she didn't fully plan. That overlap is the whole reason we work the way we do.

We could brief a designer and have four tidy labels back by Friday. We keep not doing that, and it costs us time, and I still think it's the right call.

First look at the labels, and a favour

The paintings were scanned at high resolution, and I've started pulling pieces of them onto the bottle and the box. What's below is a first pass and it will change. A few directions for The Origin of Light, next to the first studies for the second fragrance, working title Coocoo or Nuts, by Sophia, who gets her own letter soon.

Tell me which direction pulls you, and which one falls flat. Just hit reply with a name or a number. Your gut is worth more to me than another round of my own second guessing.

One you can actually buy

Numbers two and three are still a way off, you saw why above. If you want to smell where all this is heading, the first edition is already out: Chester Gibs, Before the World Moved Again. You can order a sample here. International shipping just got cheaper too.

Tomorrow I'm driving up near Hamburg to meet Sophia for the first time. More when I'm back.

As always, if any of this sparks something, just hit reply. I read everything.