Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance

Longwood Gardens presents its first major exhibition, Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance on view from April 10 through November 21, 2010. An intersection of flora, fashion and science, this exhibition will transform the Gardens’ gemlike Conservatory into a museum for the senses. Experience the actual plants and flowers behind iconic perfumes, explore the mysterious power of the sense of smell, discover the unique combination of creative artistry and intricate science behind perfume composition, and have the opportunity to compose a basic fragrance at the Make Your Own Fragrance stations located in the Music Room.

Fragrant Gardens & The Science of Scent

The exhibition is divided into four major sections: Into a Fragrant World, The Art of Perfume & Fragrant Gardens, The Science of Fragrance, and Your Fragrant Garden.  Longwood’s conservatory and gardens will overflow with nature’s fragrant plants and flowers and as a focal point, an 18-foot tall sculptural trellis in the shape of a perfume bottle has been specially crafted. The exhibition will continue to engage the senses throughout the grounds of Longwood Gardens with outdoor plantings for visitors to see, touch and smell.

More than 260 different Genera of aromatic plants and flowers have been added specifically for the exhibition, joining more than 5,500 types of plants from around the world already housed in the historic conservatory. Yellow freesias, Oriental lilies, hyacinths, gardenias and lilacs are interspersed with the exhibition. The delicate white blooms of jasmine, which emit a sweet and rich scent featured in many notable perfumes, will be contrasted with fresh-scented lavender, popular for centuries as an ingredient in soaps and potpourri. Ylang ylang, a yellow flower of the cananga tree that grows in Indonesia and the Philippines, is highly prized for its rich and complex fragrance and is used by perfumers to add depth and intensity to several important perfumes.

Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance also will explore the sense of smell and how scent molecules send signals to the brain that trigger moods, emotions and memories. The interpretation of scents can guide actions, influence behavior and affect feelings. The exhibition will describe the biological processes of smell, including how olfactory neurons in the nose are stimulated by approximately 10,000 different odor molecules. Human beings are instinctually hard-wired to respond to smell, but individual reactions to particular scents can be experiential, based on culture and personal experience, such as the sweet and spicy scent of cinnamon evoking joyful memories of family gatherings, or the potent fragrance of lilies acting as a poignant reminder of a loss.                                              

Creating Perfume

Perfumes are crafted from floral and other natural ingredients by artists, like François Coty (creator of Chypre), Jacques Guerlain (Shalimar), Edmond Roudnitska (Diorissimo) and Jacques Polge (Allure), whose disciplined sense of smell guides their vibrant imaginations. The perfumer begins with an idea and calls upon a mental inventory of thousands of distinct aromatic notes, mentally mixing plant, animal and synthetic ingredients. Scent composition takes the form of a pyramid, with top or head notes placed above middle or heart notes, that are supported by base or soul notes. Once a perfume is applied, the scent molecules of the top notes evaporate quickly, bringing the middle notes to the fore. Designed to last several hours, the middle notes are then replaced by base notes, which can linger for a day or more.

Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance will showcase the technical processes behind perfume creation, from traditional harvest and extraction methods to chemical combinations of synthetic fragrances.

The exhibition will also trace key moments in the history of perfume, beginning with the earliest recorded Egyptian scent around 1800 B.C.E. and culminating with Coco Chanel’s release of No. 5 in 1921, the first perfume for the modern woman.

A Family Friendly Exhibition

After seeing, touching, and smelling all of the fragrant plants and flowers throughout the gardens and Conservatory, visitors will take a scent journey using a Scent Seekers scratch and sniff guide, distributed only in the Conservatory. Travel through time learning about people (and insects) who have contributed to the industry of making scents like a rose rustler from Texas, a chemist studying the rainforest, and an artist designing fashionable perfume bottles. Find out whose nose knows as you match up sticker scents with the real plant on display.

Experience Fragrant Changes – Visit Again and Again

Throughout the exhibition, the changing seasons will offer you diverse garden scents and visual delights. In spring, you’ll experience lilacs, lilies, and narcissus. Summertime brings the delicate scent of roses, scented geraniums, lavender, and Brugmansias to the fore. During fall you’ll celebrate sage, mint, lemon, rosemary and Senna didymobotrya, or “Popcorn Cassia,” known for its popcorn-like smell. In early winter as the exhibition nears its end, you’ll take in the scents of the sweet, pungent aroma of paperwhites, contrasted with the woodsy scent of pine, juniper and fir.

Fragrant Fridays – Monthly Special Events

Join us for Fragrant Fridays, a new, full-sensory way to experience the gardens and Conservatory on select Fridays throughout its debut exhibition, Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance .

See, touch, taste, learn, and of course SMELL everything surrounding one popular “fragrance” each month. Each Fragrant Friday will feature performances, fountain shows, sampling, family activities, and takeaways.

Select Fridays from 4:00-9:00 pm. 

May 14 – Hmmmm, Chocolate

June 4 – Marvelous Mint

July 23 – Lovely Lavender

August 13 – Spice It Up

September 10 – Honey Harvest

October 22 – Ewww, Stinky

November 5 – Very Vanilla

Exhibition Programming

Throughout the exhibition, Longwood Gardens will welcome well-known figures from the fragrance industry to provide behind-the-scenes insight into the intriguing world of fragrance and its history. Lectures by the following leading fragrance experts and scientists are planned, registration is required:

Sunday, March 21, 2010, 2:00 pm - SOLD OUT
What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life with Avery N. Gilbert
Delve into the world of everyday scent with noted expert Dr. Avery N. Gilbert, a smell scientist, entrepreneur, and author. Gilbert’s book What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life (Crown, 2008) was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Royal Society Science Book Prize. Gilbert is a fragrance industry innovator and a scientific pioneer in the areas of olfactory mental imagery, multisensory correlates of odor perception, and the psychological factors that bias odor judgments. He co-authored the National Geographic Smell Survey, the largest participatory experiment of its kind.

Sunday, April 25, 2010, 2:00 pm - SOLD OUT
Fragrant Gardens, Fragrant Scents: The Culture of Perfume with Richard Stamelman
Richard Stamelman, Academic Consultant for Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance, and a visiting professor at Dartmouth College, shares his encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm for the creation, culture and couture of perfume. Author of the authoritative book, Perfume: Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin, Stamelman has spent more than fourteen years researching the various ‘languages’ of perfume, in particular the ways it has been represented in poetry, literature, painting, music, dance, advertising, bottle design, and other media.

Thursday, May 13, 2010, 7:00 pm - SOLD OUT
Scents around the World—An Olfactory and Visual Experience with Dr. Roman Kaiser
Roman Kaiser has spent his career at Givaudan Research Centre focusing on investigating and reconstituting essential oils, absolutes and synthesizing natural scent components; many of which have been used in the creation of famous fragrances. He is the author of two books The Scent of Orchids, depicting the olfactory and chemical investigations of more than 160 species, and Meaningful Scents around the World, summarizing his most important scent discoveries. He is currently working on another book, The Scent of the Vanishing Flora, focusing on the scent composition of the most endangered species worldwide.

Acknowledgements

Longwood Gardens wishes to acknowledge the generous support and contributions of the many organizations and individuals who helped make possible the exhibition, Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance .

Academic Consultant: Richard Stamelman
Exhibition Design: Assemble
Interactive Media Design: Night and Day Studios
Fabrication: Explus, Inc.

In-kind support provided by: Morgane Chapron, Annick Goutal , Paris, France; Michel Roudnitska, Art & Parfum , Cabris, France; Patrick Doucet, Curator, Chanel and Bourjois Perfume Archives , Pantin, France; Marika Genty, Director, Chanel Conservatory , Paris, France; Dr. Arthur O. Tucker, Dept. of Agriculture & Natural Resources, Delaware State University, Dover, Delaware, U.S.; Dr. Robin Clery, Natural Products Group Fragrance Research, Givaudan , Dübendorf, Switzerland; Linda Harman, Trade Media Fragrances Division, Givaudan , Kent, England; Lisa Lewis, Sr. Vice President, Creative Center Director, Givaudan , East Hanover, New Jersey, U.S.; Dr. Charles Sell, Chemist and Researcher, Givaudan , Kent, England; Elisabeth Sirot, International PR and Press Director, Perfumes, Corporate and Patrimony, Guerlain , Paris, France; Olivier Polge, Perfumer, International Flavors and Fragrances , Neuilly-sur-Seine, France; Jean Kerléo, Director, L’Osmothèque , Versailles, France; Jacques Polge, Director, Parfums Chanel , Neuilly-sur-Seine, France; Christopher Sheldrake, Director of Research and Development, Parfums Chanel , Neuilly-sur-Seine, France; Daniel Joulain, Chemist, Parfums Robertet , Grasse, France; Lydia Ziegler, Archivist, Parfums Robertet , Grasse, France; Petar Forcan, Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.; Joseph Mul and Jean-François Vieille, owners, SOTRAFLOR , Pegomas, France; Richard Ferry, CEO, Valjean Corporation , Indian Harbour Beach, Florida, U.S

Always in Bloom Eau de parfum By Longwood Gardens

Crafted by a master perfumer, the Longwood signature fragrance, Always in Bloom, captures the essence of a fragrant journey through one of the great gardens of America. This joyous new scent has been described as light, floral, clean, fresh, with hints of citrus, but not too sweet.

Always in Bloom will be available after April 10, 2010.

photo credit: Rob Cardillo and Andrea Jones

In media partnership with 6abc.