The Harmonist, Lola Tillyaeva's Personal Project

In a marketplace saturated with perfumes and fragrances of every sort, Lola Tillyaeva’s The Harmonist, stands apart. While other brands push vacuous messages and mass-produced, superficial scents, The Harmonist is inspired by the timeless mystique of the Silkroad and ancient wisdom of the East.

Lola Tillyaeva traces her passion for perfumes back to her childhood in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. For millennia a crossroads for the Silkroad, she grew up immersed in a world of cinnamon, cumin and jasmine. Even today they have the power to trigger her earliest memories. “Smells act like time capsules and our childhood memories have a lasting impression staying with us throughout our life, affecting our perfume preferences.” Such a depth of personal feeling and intimate connection is something she seeks to echo across her range. As Lola puts it, her perfumes must be attuned to the ‘invisible force’ of the individual.

"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).

 

In pursuit of this ambition, Lola Karimova and her team literally go to the ends of the Earth.

For example, for Moon Glory, a fragrance from the Prequel Collection, Lola 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.” (https://www.lolakarimova.com/the-harmonist). Few perfume makers set themselves such demanding standards of excellence.

 

The result of such attention to detail and exacting standards is a range of fragrances with uniquely find qualities. Harrods department store describes Lola 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). Fragrantica also praised her work, scoring her range 9 out of ten, (https://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/The-Harmonist/Moon-Glory-59475.html). Reactions like these do not come about by chance.

 

Such exquisite ingredients would be wasted in the wrong hands. To harmonize such exotic and disparate elements Lola chose to work with Guillaume Flavigny - one of Europe’s most celebrated ‘noses’ and winner of the Prix International du Jeune Parfumeur Créateur. Lola Karimova is conscious of the challenge they face; “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.” (https://www.lolakarimova.com/the-harmonist).

 

But European craftsmanship is only part of the story. Lola Karimova Tillyaeva also brought the venerable Chinese philosophy of Feng Shui to bear. A philosophy which views all things as composed of five universal elements and existing under the opposing forces of yin and yang, Feng Shui might be said to be the pursuit of harmony – the perfect insight for creating a balanced yet complex fragrance.