Once again, the house of AtelierPMP brings us a fragrance that is both modern and excitingly different. Following up on the success of their debut Dreckig Bleiben – elected by Gala as their 2013 “Perfume of the Year“ – proprietors Stefanie Mayr and Daniel Plettenberg have once more carved out a new perfume concept which wanders consciously from the beaten track of the perfume world, concocting a fragrance as distinctive as it is ideological: Concrete Flower – an homage to the art of graffiti.
Colour blooming over the grey of urban sprawl – an homage to the art of graffiti
The name Concrete Flower seems at first contradictory – evoking as it does urbanity and nature in a single breath. Yet Concrete Flower is anything but a contradiction. It is, instead, a tribute to the movement that succeeds in making our cities truly more colourful and fascinating while lending a voice to society: graffiti. From thousand-year-old cave paintings and gossip on the walls of ancient Pompeii it has woven its way through the millennia – through 70s gang culture and on to today’s stars like Banksy. As a political form it finds its intellectual foundations in street art; from guerrilla gardening to stencilling and urban knitting. An artistic expression which draws from a huge palette – from murals as tall as buildings to the cryptic scribblings of the street.
To create “a crackingly fresh alternative to dreariness” was the challenge we offered star perfumer Mark Buxton – a maestro usually found creating for such houses as Comme des Garcons Fragrances, Givenchy and Cartier. The result: a fragrance that comes on with the force of graffiti, that hints briefly at concrete and blasts of colour, but that primarily resonates with the beauty and power of nature – a scent for a liberated world.
The Idea
Street art is an invitation for absolutely anybody to express themselves, to participate in public conversation. To shape surfaces and even societies – paint over dull, efficient architecture; plant up lifeless urban landscapes, reject pure advertising defining the look of the city, put paid to the feeling of political powerlessness.
To honour this philosophy – in all its strength and power – is to harness potential and spread ideas.
Concrete Flower is thereby an appeal to all to seize this opportunity, to draw upon their own powerful potential to leave their trace: I can make my mark on the world. I can cause the colourful and the new to burst forth.
“Graffiti – and street art in general – are in direct communication with their surroundings, and that communication has a tremendous intensity. That was the attraction for us: this powerful directness deserves its own fragrance.“
The Fragrance
It is precisely the directness of Concrete Flower that impresses upon the mind: for a second the senses are stunned and seduced by a spray of paint, which develops into a note both lime-fresh and herbal, based upon bergamot, mandarine, black pepper, thyme, sage and cardamon.
The heart: an unexpected chord of neroli, ginger, jasmine, iris, clove oil and lily. The base note resonates with styrax, noble wood notes of sandalwood, Chinese cedar and oakmoss, rounded off with amber and a hint of musk.
And there it is – A super-modern, intensely green and energising play on the Eau de Cologne theme comes to life and, with it, a fragrance that vehemently reminds us to be a creator of this world, to write our own, unique mark upon it.
NOT A BOTTLE, BUT A TAG PEN
How do you pack a love letter to graffiti? Concrete Flower would never have accepted being packed into a classic bottle, being as it is much more than a fragrance – statement, homage, challenge. Mayr and Plettenberg resolved to house their fragrance in a tag pen – the graffiti pens used to leave signatures, cryptic and concrete messages.
The best tags are made with squeezers from Grog®. The owners of the Italian company were so impressed by the vision of the Concrete Flower project that they designed and produced a pen esepecially for AtelierPMP: a black tag pen, opaque to protect its precious contents. It is the perfect packaging concept to mirror the intellectual, aesthetic and qualitative characteristics of the fragrance.
Mark yourself – and the world!
THE CONCRETE FLOWER PROJECT: MAKE THE WORLD BRIGHT
Concrete Flower is more than just a super-modern fragrance, it is also a project. It is Concrete Flower’s mission to support the process of ending the drab and letting our cities bloom again, heightening awareness that anybody can pick up a colour and take part in that process. Right here, right now! Spraying, planting, communicating. On the fragrance’s website, artists from all around the world can show how they are transforming concrete into visual bouquets: with tags, graffiti, plants.
The South African graffiti artist Nardstar* has already left behind her take on blossoming concrete in Cape Town – more local and international artists are yet to come. A range of viral videos divulge sprayers’ secrets and direct the viewer to the homepage. Graffiti artists have already designed Concrete Flower fonts in Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese … Concrete Flower is spreading through the metropolises. The website becomes a forum for international artists, and the philosophy of street art:
THE MAKERS
Stefanie Mayr: designer, visionary, artist and owner of Elternhaus – www.elternhaus.com
Daniel Plettenberg: brand creator, philosopher, inventor
The Parfumer: Mark Buxton is a perfume creator and hedonist who works for labels like Comme des Garcons Fragrances, Le Labo, Givenchy, Cartier and Burberry – or for PMP Perfumes Mayr Plettenberg such as with the already successful ”Dreckig bleiben!“ – www.markbuxton.com
