The IAO’s Saskia Wilson-Brown recently visited Iceland, and took a moment to check out the iconic perfume brand, Fischersund. Here is a report, from the (cold and drizzly) field!
–
Fischersund is an indie perfume company and art collective founded in 2017 in Reykjavik by a family that includes “perfumer and musician Jónsi, his sisters Lilja, Inga, Sigurrós and father Birgis.” Jónsi serves as the company’s perfumer – a skill he taught himself, and a talent he adds to his existing work as a musician and as an artist.
Located on Fischersund street in the city center, the shop is housed in a beautifully painted black building hosting an installation-led store upstairs and a small art space downstairs. When we visited, the downstairs – a basement, really – was kitted out as a bar where you could experience some of the perfumes by lifting tall glass cloches. The bar feeling was enhanced with old cane chair seats clustered around little tables, and a vibe that despite being lit with carefully placed neon tubes felt ancient. Apparently there’s a ghost who occasionally makes an appearance, but we were fortunate enough not to meet her.
There’s something going on in perfumery, in the far north, and our bet is that it has something to do with nature: an essential factor when living in such a rugged and extreme landscape. Both Fischersund and fellow Icelandic perfumer Andrea Maack take overt inspiration from Iceland’s natural world – both the pretty (rhubarb, spruce, anise seed) and the not so pretty (“a beached whale about to explode” – from Fischersund’s No. 23). Thus we experience a set of scentscapes that are as far removed from the classic florals as Iceland is from Grasse itself.
There are so many ways to make beauty, in this world.
Learn more at www.fischersund.com
