Designer Interview: Christopher Brosius
Christopher Brosius By Marie Redding, Senior Editor
Christopher Brosius is part perfumer, part package designer. As the original creator of the Demeter Fragrance Library fragrance brand in 1993, Brosius sold the company in 2002 and stayed on as its perfumer until last July.
"As successful as Demeter was, it had turned into something I hadn't originally set out to create," Brosius says. "I was dealing with the factory, managing the store, sorting out employer issues, and managing the product. I finally had to stop and say to myself, 'I was put here on this planet to make perfume, and that is what I'm going to do.'"
n order to display and sell his work, he opened a gallery where he lives, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. "It shows how I've always approached fragrance from an artist's perspective," he says. Brosius named the gallery and the collection of perfumes he sells CB I Hate Perfume. The unusual name is based on a manifesto
The bottle for Brosius's M1 Narcissus perfume is wrapped in parchment paper, then inserted into a drafting tube Brosius wrote for himself, before he founded Demeter. It lists everything he hates about fragrance, what he feels it should be, and how he strives to make it. Brosius caters to private clients who hire him to create custom blends. He will source any type of bottle requested. For his fragrances, he chooses simple lab glass from stock, with the stoppers sometimes gilded or sandblasted. "I like the elegant simplicity of its look because it puts more emphasis on the fragrance itself," he explains. "And I do have a few fancier options available." Brosius even designs and prints his own labels, sometimes using a client's favorite photo as inspiration.
Try as he might to keep his creations to a small, exclusive scale, Brosius became accidentally sidetracked recently with a much larger project. The project found him asking bottle supplier Arrowpak Inc. how long the leadtime would be for 25,000 bottles. The reason was that actor Alan Cumming had requested a custom blend. Named after Cumming, the scent will be launching in select stores in mid-February. The creative concept, from its promotional campaign to the packaging, is a result of collaboration among Cumming, Brosius (as art director and creator of the scent), and Jason Schell, creative director (formerly creative director at Kiehl's). The name Cumming will be etched on the simple stock bottle. The bottle will be packed inside a glossy white carton with a red logo. Inside the box will be a collage of images from the promotional campaign.
In order to handle more of these larger, niche-type projects in the future, Brosius and Schell have started a company that they co-own, named Slheik Alumni Project. Although this business already seems destined to grow quickly, Brosius still has every intention of following his original business plan. "Once it becomes a $40 million business, that's when fragrance becomes a different animal," he says. "I need to keep my own business small and make sure it is structured very differently. It's just a different way of living life."