A blessed, if somewhat belated, vernal equinox to you all. The arrival of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, marked by the Sun's Northward crossing of the celestial equator, is a celebration of growth, balance, renewal—of burgeoning life. Night and day return as equals, and Spring’s life bursts forth from Fall’s decay, a flush of colour revived after a season buried beneath plains of white.
As we are part of nature, nature is part of us. We too may begin to feel the weight of winter’s blanket of frost lifting from our shoulders; the breath of Spring air reanimating us as it does the life beneath our feet. We've spent the cold months laying old parts of us—layers that needed shedding—to rest. Now, in April, we dedicate ourselves to planting new seeds, both metaphorically and literally, and to tending to the garden of our hearts.
LÖVENDAHL!
Q. Your aesthetic blends the botanical, the ritualistic, and the otherworldly. How does this translate into your daily work as a creator?
A. My process is rooted in a relationship with the natural world. I garden, grow, and forage a portion of the plants I work with and approach nature through an animistic lens. When I work with raw materials or their extracts, I attune to their essence or spirit, noticing how they reveal themselves through their emotional impact and intuitive impressions. When you experience nature as animate and communicative, it takes on a sense of mystery or otherworldlyness. Translating that feeling into something tangible is at the heart of my process and aesthetic.
Q. LVNEA has a strong and devoted following. What do you hope people feel—or remember—when they wear your scents?
A. Ideally, the experience of wearing a LVNEA fragrance transports the person somewhere else–into a story that is both new and exciting, while also comforting and strangely familiar. I want the wearer to feel as though they’ve stepped into a story or a landscape, something intimate but also timeless. Scent has the ability to connect us to memory, but also life and creation; nature and imagination. If someone feels that connection, then the perfume has done its work.
Q. Can you share a recent moment, discovery, or experiment that surprised you in the studio?
A. (...) Experimenting with your own extraction methods can yield unexpected results–you never really know what you’ll have until it’s finished. For example, I’ve tinctured some damp, antique books, and was delighted to discover the sweet vanilla note that emerged from beneath the signature ‘old book’ mustiness.
Q. And finally: what scent, natural or otherwise, is haunting you these days?
A. (…) I recently came upon a new, rare mushroom extract and needed to begin working with it immediately, flooded with inspiration and ideas of different ways to incorporate this mushroom into fragrance. I recently started my own extract using corn kernels, as well–sunny and sweet. A corn-based perfume is surely on the horizon!
The full interview will be up soon!