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.
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
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