Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva - The Importance Of A Good Perfume
In a world
awash with perfumes, fragrances and eau de toilettes, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva
and her maison de parfums stand apart. While global
networks tirelessly plug empty messages promoting mass-produced and
mass-marketed scents, The Harmonist holds to a
tightly focused, deeply felt ideal – a perfume must be attuned to the ‘invisible
force’ of the individual. Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva describes
her philosophy this way;
“One
of the main missions of our brand is to encourage and motivate our clients to
take an enlightening and rewarding journey into their inner self through
exploring the world of scents. There is no such thing as a perfume that is ideal for everyone. Like
clothes, it depends on the occasion and character of the person. I’d
say that perfume can certainly be perfect for a particular moment, occasion or for a particular mood,” (www.lolakarimova.com/the-harmonist).
These are not empty words. Harrods department store describes Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva’s fragrances as, “tantalising – an expertly composed complexity of scents…” (https://www.harrods.com/en-es/shopping/the-harmonist-moon-glory-pure-perfume-50ml-15353654). The folk at Fragrantica were also impressed. They scored Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva’s range as a 9 out of ten, (https://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/The-Harmonist/Moon-Glory-59475.html).
Reactions like these do not come about by accident. Lola Karimova and her team literally go the ends of the Earth in the pursuit of perfection. For example, for Moon Glory, a fragrance from the Prequel Collection, Lola Tillyaeva sourced jasmine from Hawaii for its “unique blend of depth and sensuality.”
Ylang Ylang blossoms from Comoros were specifically selected due to their
“delicate fruity smell, which in aromatherapy is prized for its properties to
calm the nervous system.” Finally, passionflowers from Mexico were needed for
their “sultry note and a pearly feel.” Few perfume makers set themselves such
demanding standards of excellence.
To
harmonize such exotic and disparate elements she turned to Guillaume
Flavigny. One of Europe’s most celebrated ‘noses’ and winner
of the Prix International du Jeune Parfumeur Créateur, he was an inspired choice. The quality and
subtlety of his skill becomes immediately apparent with every sample of The Harmonist
range. Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva herself is conscious of this, “Creating
a scent is very much like creating a piece of music – notes blend into chords,
and the chords harmonize into a full-blown melody. Just like a good piece of
music, a good fragrance encompasses a wide range of tonalities, the notes of
different scents, if you will”. But there is much
more to her maison de parfums than simply European know-how.
The
venerable Chinese philosophy of Feng
Shui is the guiding and unifying principle which underpins
everything they do at The Harmonist. A worldview
which understands existence as a composition of five universal elements and
dominated by the by the opposing forces of yin and yang, Feng
Shui is a pursuit of harmony. It aims to achieve balance.
What could be a more insightful and fitting approach for the creation of
pleasing fragrances than that?