Event #1 Blog

Scent Fair

I went to the Scent Fair during the weekend of week 6 at Hammer Museum. The perfume production process is quite fascinating.

In the beginning of the lecture, the lecturer talked about the popular culture of perfumes. For example, the appearance of eau de Toillete, a fragrant oil mix with alcohol that evaporated slowly on skin, changed the way how people think about perfume. The lecturer believed that scent gradually found its way into popular culture and art.

Scent makes sense. There is the experiment workshop in Hammer, in which we can smell different scents and try to interpret them with self understandings. As I know, there are some scent shops in Beijing, called scent library. Customers smell hundreds kinds of scents such as the smell of hug, tears, mud and so on. An interesting set is the scent set of cities, which let customers feel the different smells of cities.

Next, the lecturer introduced the famous Cherry Blossom perfume: a desirable scent during the lost 19-20th generation, as well as the English show Floreadora. This show was really popular and influenced the female of the time. During the time, perfumes could inspire an actress to act by giving her a perfume "jag", since women were crazy about perfumes.

This event is closely related to the course for the close relationship between perfume and art. Perfumes have proved the significant role in art creation; Perfumes played an important role in inspiring women to act; Perfumes to some extent represent the symbol of women's awareness of consciousness. Nowadays, developing different scents/perfumes become a popular art. Moreover, the scent library provides a space for people to enjoy this type of art.


Sources:

"Watch Live." The Hammer Museum. Web. 17 May 2016.

"Perfumes & Cosmetics." : Perfume Production UAE in Springfield. Web. 17 May 2016.

"Florodora." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 18 May 2016.

"Scent Library." Baidu. Web. 18 May 2016.

"Eau De Toilette." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 18 May 2016.