Jme

Designer Q & A

How did you get started in fragrance design?

I always had a passion for fragrance. From a very young age I was lucky to have travelled extensively and I gathered a personal collection of memorable images and captivating scents along the way! From the pungent spice markets of Africa to the delicate mimosas of the Med to the lush lavender fields of Provence – all these elements inspire the scents Bella Bellissima creates.

I have since trained with two of the top fragrance houses in France and am still learning and discovering rare ingredients and intoxicating combinations of ‘notes' every day.

How did Jamie first learn about you?

I first met Jamie about four years ago when I was having dinner with my close friend the photographer David Loftus (who is one of Jamie's best friends) and Jamie turned up because he was in the area and was hungry! David, told Jamie about what I was doing and we ended up chatting all night about our favourite ingredients and unusual combinations. I remember Jamie saying, “So, in theory you could make a candle that smelt of...”..and so the evening went on! We kept in touch after that. Jamie and Jools were given the entire collection as a Christmas present by David Loftus and have worn our perfumes, used our bath and body products and scented their homes with our candles and home parfums ever since!

Jamie always says that our candles are the best he's ever used. He is also a big fan of what he calls ‘that blue stuff' (Bella Bellissima's Glacial Mist Body Hydrator) and always takes our products, including home parfums, on his travels – or borrows David's when they're on a shoot!

How do you think the worlds of food and fragrance intertwine?

To me they are one and the same. Food, like perfumery, is linked to both nature and the earth. Both are creative processes and pieces of art. As in cooking, in perfumery, you combine raw ingredients to create an emotional response. A response you take pleasure from.

What process do you go through to design a new fragrance?

We start by identifying the style of the scent this may be floral, citrus, woody, oriental, etc) and the emotion that we wish it to convey. We know how we want the person to feel when they are wearing it and it is so important to me that each ingredient we use has a wonderful story behind it – little touches like that make the scent personal and special. We then decide what fragrance ‘notes' will combine to create this emotion and get to work. A fragrance will typically go through several tens to several hundreds of revisions until we're happy with it.

To find out more about the collaboration, go to www.scentandsavour.com