Iceland review - 2012, Side 35

ICELAND REVIEW 33
ART
Tall and slender, with porcelain skin and bright
red lips, Andrea Maack greets me at her
company’s headquarters in 101 Reykjavík,
overlooking the city’s busiest shopping street.
The white walls are lined with Andrea’s
own striking graphics; on tabletops lie neatly
ordered perfume bottles, magic markers,
flowers, books and magazines. In here, it smells absolutely divine.
“Since signing with major Italian perfume distributor Intertrade
Europe last September, it’s been a whirlwind; a lot of work,” she
says as we take a seat at her desk. “Since then, my partner Gísli has
managed the company and my friend and long time collaborator
Ingibjörg Agnes Jónsdóttir has been appointed head of design.
We’ve been travelling all over Italy and the United States, hosting
press meetings and events in stores as well as within the art scene.
Intertrade now oversees our global distribution and the production
has moved to Italy. This deal allows us to focus freely on the design
and development of the concept. The world of niche perfume is
fascinating; we’re enjoying it all very much.”
A 2005 graduate of the Iceland Academy of the Arts with a
degree in visual arts, Andrea‘s path to success in the world of
high-end perfumes is unusual to say the least. “As a visual artist I
am interested in fashion and beauty and that’s how it all began,” she
explains. “Preparing for an art exhibition in the 2008 Reykjavík
Arts Festival, I got the idea to make a perfume. I had already started
working with the concept of wearable art, for example making
dresses from paper I had drawn on. Before becoming an artist, I had
worked in the London fashion industry and was even enrolled in a
fashion design program. But I just had this gut feeling that I should
come home and study art instead. However, as soon as I started my
artistic career I couldn’t ignore this old passion of mine,” she says.
“I named it SMART, which is an abbreviation for Smell Art. I only
had four bottles made for the fake perfume launch, which of course
was really an artistic installation. Guests got to take home a piece of
a drawing I had made, which had inspired the fragrance. I played
the hostess and sprayed the scent onto their piece of drawing or
their skin. During the run of the show, the gallery owner allowed
guests to try it and soon people were asking where they could
purchase it. Then there was no turning back. Especially since I had
come up with such an innovative way to create it.”
What Andrea had done was send her handmade drawing, along
with sketches of the gallery space, to a French perfume designer
who then interpreted it as a scent. This process has since become
her trademark. “Even if I like to cross into the worlds of fashion
and beauty, I still remain true to my artistic side – my drawings are
the basis for everything I do.”
She reaches for a bottle of the fragrance and sprays it on a white
paper stick. The scent is soft and powdery, a delicate combination
of violet leaf, jasmine, sandalwood, vanilla, white musk and buck-
skin. “It was made in Grasse, France. Since it was not intended to
be marketed, there were no restrictions as to what it could cost
or anything like that. So, the perfumers were allowed to go wild,”
she smiles.
After the success of SMART, Andrea wanted to continue on
the same path. A second fragrance, CRAFT, is a twist on couture
art, and was created for a show at the Reykjavík Art Museum. It
accompanied a dress Andrea made in collaboration with a French
fashion designer. “The dress was made entirely by hand; it was
an ode to haute couture, and took 200 hours to make,” she says,
pointing to a mannequin in a gown that is somehow both fragile
and strong, classic and futuristic. Upon closer examination, the
meticulous pencil-drawn print becomes evident.
The third, and somewhat bolder fragrance, SHARP, was inspired
by a more colorful drawing that accompanied a sponge dress
Andrea made for the Dutch fashion Biennial. “In addition to spray-
ing the scent, I decided to make twenty-five 25-ml bottles to sell
at a concept store. They sold out immediately.”
Following the success of the first three fragrances, both in
Iceland and abroad, Andrea began to consider turning the fra-
grances into marketable products and received a couple of product
development grants. After that, the fragrances were launched at
Spark, Reykjavík’s leading design gallery, in a major exhibition
entitled Eau de Parfum. “This time, I decided to have a thousand
bottles made, with proper packaging and all. I had no idea what
I was getting myself into but thought that selling them in Iceland
would be a good place to start—to test the market. Sales took off
immediately and I also received a lot of requests from vendors in
other countries as well. Completely new to the industry, I decided
to proceed with caution and therefore chose only a handful of
shops abroad. When my perfumes got coverage in the design