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Middle America’s indie perfume boom
The secret ingredient? Earnestness.
Em Seely-Katz on the apocalyptic sensibilities of midwestern olfaction.
If you’ve encountered a perfume that smells like a light bulb on the brink of fizzling out, a sparkling arcade with lime cola spilled across its freshly-waxed flooring, or a mysterious infection that eradicates gluten in an imagined future, you’ve likely already noticed that a large percentage of the most radical, inspired, and specific fragrances currently on the market originate in the American Midwest. Have you noticed, then, the apocalyptic sensibilities that permeate this new scene?
Over the past three years, houses like Clue, Pearfat Parfum, and agar olfactory (all three based in Chicago, Illinois) have initiated a veritable “Midwestern Perfume Boom,” electrifying mainstream expectations of niche perfumery and establishing the Midwest as both a functional Mecca of the American fragrance industry and a source of niche experimentation.
Over the past three years, houses like Clue, Pearfat Parfum, and agar olfactory (all three based in Chicago, Illinois) have initiated a veritable “Midwestern Perfume Boom”
Aside from geographic proximity, something ineffable is drawing this scene together. Fragrances like Multiball—one of the most popular fragrances by Pearfat Parfum’s Alie Kiral—are charged with the tension between familiar notes and an undeniable sense of desolation.
Pearfat’s fragrances are set pieces completed by their wearer: to apply Multiball (the arcade with spilled cola) is to become a character occupying its waxy floorboards. However, Kiral says that her perfumes are “not necessarily meant for everyday wear”—as I see it, they’re experiential pieces designed as dioramas one can appreciate either from within or from a safe distance.
“What are these spaces when we’re not around?” is the question posed by the majority of Kiral’s work, and for good reason: large swaths of the Midwest have been defined by cyclical emptiness due to deindustrialization, demographic changes, and ecological events. When I ask Alie to name some particularly Midwestern smells that inspire her creations, between the Great Lakes and verdant hikes she mentions “abandoned spaces—musty, dusty, rust and standing water, icky smells like that—that's definitely a part of our cities.”
They’re experiential pieces designed as dioramas one can appreciate either from within or from a safe distance.
agustine zegers of agar olfactory (both names intentionally left lowercase) puts an even finer point on the aesthetics of alienation that define the “Midwestern Perfume Boom” with their lineup of fragrances, each of which corresponds to a speculative scenario in the past or future: a y2k-based scent with notes of mouse pad and “mac carcass,” a scent set in 2021 mimicking Blue Apron delivery left to rot in an apartment lobby.
This whimper-not-bang interpretation of apocalypse (duly documented last year by Audrey Robinovitz of Haloscope) is central to the ethos of agar olfactory. As explained by zegers: “the presence of fragrances that pull in apocalyptic notes are a function of the banality of end times. Apocalypses are folded into every corner and stitch of our lives.” Clue’s “Warm Bulb” (which is often sold out) and agar’s “cero” share the almost-sweet, heady buzz of electricity that is itself an endangered sound.
Even the earthiest work springing from this scene is shot through with end-of-the-world considerations: Sfumato, a Detroit house that sells “natural” fragrances made of botanical ingredients, offers “Survival Instinct,” a survivalist fantasy of wood chopping (as per the label’s website) enacted in notes of anise and bark. Scents like agar’s “matsu musk” and Clue’s “Morel Map” bring mycelia to the forefront, the heroes of climate fiction like Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning The Overstory.
