Take two of the fashion and beauty industry's most sought after names and put them together to create a beauty collection and what have you got? The most sartorially approved, painfully cool perfume ever. Also, an immediate cult following.
Yup, we're talking about the latest collab between the bad boy of fashion, Off-White designer Virgil Abloh and perfumer and founder of Byredo, Ben Gorham.
Titled, 'Elevator Music', the brand new scent is part of a larger capsule collection by the duo that includes high end denim, graphic t-shirts and luxe leather bags alongside the core perfume, hand cream and hair mist.
Housed in Byredo's iconic minimalistic domed glass bottle with the addition of striking silver candy stripes running diagonally across the front, this isn't a product merely for perfume lovers, this is for beauty curators.
So what does a perfume called 'Elevator Music' smell like exactly? Well, according to Abloh and Gorham, it's all a bit conceptual.
'The project attempts to define the least amount of information needed to understand a product context and background, in this case objects we define as luxury goods,' reads the press release.
'The studies of Swedish scientist Gunnar Johansson who in the 70's defined frame work regarding human move- ment perception and the notion "elevator syndrome" were the foundation for the 2004 installation by artist Carsten Höller,' continues the press release.
A conceptual perfume with no discernible scent? Count us intrigued. Thankfully, this is where master perfumer Ben Gorham comes into his own. Citing midnight violet, bamboo and musky ambrette as key notes, Gorham and Abloh have transformed the idea of an office cliché into a moodily understated fragrance.
'It's a fragrance for the background, as opposed to the foreground,' Gorham explained to VOGUE.
Although a clothing designer first and foremost (with a dash of DJing thrown in) Abloh was always prepared to dip a toe into the beauty industry, with a more specific interest in perfume than the visionary 'Elevator Music' might suggest.
'Since I was a teenager, I've been inspired by fragrance,' the US designer told VOGUE. 'It wasn't just what a fragrance smelled like, but the halo around it.'
Off White x Byredo: Elevator Music is limited edition and launches in Selfridges and on Byredo.com April 23rd 2018.
