VOPREKI - eau de toilette for both women & men, created specifically for the menswear collection ‘Communication Tube’ with the support of the Givaudan Brand, which was presented at the Hyeres Festival 18, as a part of the assignment.

NAME

The name of the perfume would be ''VOPREKI''. It is Russian word, which means ''despite of'', ''in contrary to'', ''in the face of''. That word is very valuable for this concept and this story. It brings together the spirit of the collection, and embodies the image of a person as a unique and open-minded individual, with his own opinion and perception on everything, not depending on anything, that can bring him down or make him doubt himself.

INSPIRATION

The goal with this scene is to add more power to my visual story and to empathize with the strength of the main character, who inspired my designs. I was mainly inspired by the image of the musician Victor Tsoi, whose personality I find the most relatable and motivating.

BOTTLE

In the 80s it was very popular among men to smoke oval cigarettes ‘’Strela’’ (’’Arrow’’). The expression ‘’to shoot a cigarette’’ appeared earlier, but to ‘soviet’ man it was associated with this brand, because of the name. Those cigarettes were also called cigarettes for ‘’shooters’’. The quality was not very good, but the variety of brands was impressive.

DEVELOPMENT

Key scent associations:

- the smell of the bonfire (young people in the 80s used to spend their free time camping and building bonfires, especially in my mom's memory, when she participated in the summer working camps. Sitting by the fire and singing and playing guitar was the essential part of their 'nonartificial' activities)

- the smell of the stokehold & coal (before becoming the Rock Idol of the 80s, Victor Tsoi used to work in the dirty steamship, where he would always wear black clothes, so the color of the coal won't be noticeable)

- the smell of the smoke from the stokehold - the smell of the sleepers ( walking on the sleepers is still very popular in Russia, as it was in the 80s. It is considered as a very romantic process and helps to clear out your mind. This smell is very soft & warm, with a mixture of the smell of wood and the smell when the workers fix the sleepers with the soldering iron. Also, my grandad was an engineer and he used to use the soldering iron at home all the time, so that smell is very familiar to me)

- the smell of the smoke & cigarettes (in the 80s people didn't have a big variety of the cigarette brands, so the only available thing was the brand 'Arrow', which had the most horrible smell when you smoked it, but then after some time your clothes started to smell like tobacco. So everyone mainly smoked it for the after smell)

- the smell of the Turkish coffee, which actually smelled like bad tobacco (In my mom's memories, during their lunch breaks in the University, they all used to rush to the cafe to grab some coffee (which was the only coffee, that was available), obviously the coffee was very bad quality, and after few sips, there was just a dark suspension, that tasted like bad tobacco) After reading all of these associations, it's reasonable to imagine a very strong, manly, thick smell, but actually, all of those smells I find very familiar, so for me, they are not strong.