Fragranze's Proust Questionnaires - Vol. 7
Editorial
Edition 18
17.02.2021
Chandler Burr's questionnaires: With a nod to Proust, it's all about perfumes. Discover the protagonists of the last episode. 
It is the last column from the series curated by Chandler Burr, perfume critic and artistic director of Pitti Fragranze, and dedicated to the greatest contemporary perfumers. It features Timothy Han, former assistant to John Galliano, whose fragrances are inspired by iconic works of literature, and Spyros Drosopoulos, self-taught nose and founder of the Baruti brand. Read the interviews.
Spyros Drosopoulos
Former academic, self-taught perfumer. Creating for his own brand Baruti, perfumer for hire, inhouse perfumer for scent-marketing company Delush,  developing algorithmic perfumery with Scentronix. Loves performing live with his materials. Shares his knowledge on formulating at the IAO
1 What quality do you most admire in other people?
Creativity
 
2 What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Kindness
 
3 What is your greatest strength?
Self-awareness
 
4 What do you dislike most about yourself?
My time management skills (the lack of)
 
5 What makes you happiest?
Creating
 
6 What is your greatest fear?
The "what if" question
 
7 Which living person do you most despise?
People trying to tell me what to do
 
8 What is your greatest extravagance?
Answering to no one
 
9 When do you lie?
When people can't handle the truth
 
10 Why did you choose to create in the art medium of scent?
Because it satisfies my desire to be creative and use my brain at the same time
 
11 Who are the architect, the musician or group, and the film director whose artistic style and aesthetics most closely resemble yours?
Darren Aronofsky
 
12 Which scent raw material can you not live without?
Cashmeran

13 Which scent raw material do you never use?
Dihydromyrcenol
 
14 What is your favorite perfume of your own?
Always my newest one

15 What is your favorite perfume not your own?
Wode by Boudicca (the original version by Geza)
 
16 If you had to choose in another person: bad breath or bad body odor?
Bad breath, you can always offer them chewing gum, offering someone deodorant is trickier and gross
 
17 Which city or place smells the best?
Rhodos in summer, the fenugreek with the herbs and the sea breeze, to die for
 
18 Of all your time at Fragranze, what aspect has most surprised or interested you?
The imposter syndrome: people who present themselves as perfumers when they are not
 
19 What do you most want that you could get if you had enough money?
A holiday in space
 
20 What do you most want that money cannot buy?
For our societies to be organized around "abundance" instead of "limited resources" as axiom 
Timothy Han
Timothy Han creates fragrances inspired by iconic works of literature. A former assistant to John Galliano, his approach to fragrance has been called backwards and upside down. He never set out to create perfumes but found himself pushed into the industry by chance
1 What quality do you most admire in other people?
Curiosity

2 What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Masculinity

3 What is your greatest strength?
Not caring what people think

4 What do you dislike most about yourself?
Not caring enough

5 What makes you happiest?
Let’s start with sunshine…

6 What is your greatest fear?
That guy in the Whitehouse. The guy in Downing Street. Most male world leaders

7 Which living person do you most despise?
That guy in the Whitehouse

8 What is your greatest extravagance?
Time

9 When do you lie?
Usually in a bed

10 Why did you choose to create in the art medium of scent?
I didn’t choose. I got pushed into it

11 Who are the architect, the musician or group, and the film director whose artistic style and aesthetics most closely resemble yours?
How about we settle on a period and just say the early to mid-90s

12 Which scent raw material can you not live without?
Mitti Attar. Though I have yet to use it in a fragrance

13 Which scent raw material do you never use?
Surely a trick question?

14 What is your favorite perfume of your own?
You can’t ask a parent who their favourite child is

15 What is your favorite perfume not your own?
I have favourite smells but not favourite perfumes

16 If you had to choose in another person: bad breath or bad body odor?
It depends who that person was to me

17 Which city or place smells the best?
My imagination. It enhances every city to a level they never achieve in reality

18 Of all your time at Fragranze, what aspect has most surprised or interested you?
I would be ostracized for stating it

19 What do you most want that you could get if you had enough money?
A remote country retreat on a coast

20 What do you most want that money cannot buy?
Peace and unity