SCENTING SPACES
Curators, production designers, and performance artists are eager to incorporate the multi-sensory element of fragrance to their craft. Artist John Foley talks all things olfactory with Jonty Race.
Perched on grey stone steps, on an equally grey day in London’s industrial-chic Granary square: Conversation with Scent Artist John Foley is anything but drab. Chelsea’s 63-year-old man about town, the multi-hyphenate creative is the co-author of bespoke perfumery brand S/JF Narrative, a professional model, and former costume designer at the English National Opera and the Royal College of Music. Foley recently scented Campbell Addy’s ‘I Love Campbell’ exhibition at 180 Studios, and he’s due to work with designer Ross Palmer for his MA fashion show at the Royal College of Art.
“I kind of see perfume as a
self-portrait”.
Growing up on his family’s farm in Ireland’s rural County Cork provided Foley with an endless source of olfactory inspiration, “my favourite smell is of wet earth in winter.” He tells me, “I love the smell of wet animals” and “Chamomile, we were a dairy farm, and it grew in kind of wet places you know where we washed out the milking machines. It loves damp. And so that for me is a complete heritage smell. You know it’s instant, takes me back there”. He jokes – through soft plumes of Benson and Hedges Blue cigarette smoke – that all perfumers smoke because they love the smell, “I suppose it’s how I punctuate time,” he adds, flicking back his characteristic white curls. He is sat reservedly, dressed in beautifully layered classic cutaway shirts, one floral and one white, a grey jacket marbled with black inky details burrowed or gifted from a friend, and overdyed vintage military trousers. His connections are as eclectic as his wardrobe, acquired through his years of experience working as a costume designer for theatre and film. Moving to London from Ireland in his 20s, Foley began an apprenticeship in costume design in 1987 at the Players Theatre, an industry he’d worked in for thirty years until 2017 when he decided to focus on his scent art.
The incorporation of scent into spaces is becoming a bigger thing says Foley: “I was very lucky because I was very early in on it.” Though his brand S/JF Narrative has a commercial edge, his work of late is less concerned with wearable perfume and more with scenting happenings – by that I mean fashion shows, exhibitions, and performances. “It’s very much a rising thing to add another element, adding something else subtle. You get soundtracks at exhibitions more so now than ever before, so bringing in smell is another way to go. It gets people in. You can see so much online but really if you want to see the artwork you’ve got to be in front of it. Having a scent track is another element that you can bring into that” he tells me.
“I thought minimalism in a
huge space. Let's do that.”
A recent “nose-job” for Foley was Campbell Addy’s ‘I Love Campbell’ exhibition, a beautiful collection of the image makers most igniting work to date. “He got in touch with my studio and explained that he was going to have his first solo show, and would I scent it. He pretty much gave me a free hand, but we discussed it an awful lot, The 180 space is vast, It's a huge space. I thought minimalism in a huge space. Let's do that.” Foley created two scents for the show, one based on the space as exhibition goers entered which was a what he described as a golden green smell, inspired by “lying under a tree on a bright summer’s day, and looking up into the leaves. The colours are changing, and you get the flick of golden and green”. The other was more floral.
Though he has no formal training in perfumery “I knew how it was physically made for a long time” he tells me. Using 18th century methods and a trial-and-error approach, Foley has been able to pursue his passion for all things scent. “It's all to do with body's modelling, perfume, the costume stuff” he muses, “I kind of see perfume as a self-portrait”.