Category: The House

As the year draws toward its close, we pause to thank you. Four months ago the Purrfume Atelier was a rumour, a velvet cushion and a jar of regret. Today it is a house of forty seven scents, eleven thousand loyal wearers and one chaise that nobody is permitted to touch. We are, all of us, a little overcome.

Our Chairman, Lord Percival Tumbleton, has asked that we say only this: that perfume is memory made visible, and that the best memories are warm. Aurelien adds that he would like his cream to arrive earlier. Céleste has made no statement, but has been seen sitting by the window with her eyes closed, inhaling the entire autumn. We take that as a blessing. We take it, in fact, as a review.

We are sometimes asked why our fragrances are priced as they are. We can only answer with candour. A single 50 ml bottle of Warm Laptop requires 4.2 kilograms of raw materials, eleven weeks of maturation, one hand blown flacon, a silk lined box, and approximately six hours of Céleste’s attention, a resource we value at roughly $40 an hour, plus a nap.

Added to that are the costs of the Atelier, the glassmaker’s wages, the fish, the transport of the fish, the regret over the fish, and the weekly delivery of cream to the Master Perfumer, who has not specified why. The margin is modest. The prestige is considerable. The remainder, after all fees, we invest in a reserve fund for the purchase of larger boxes.

On Thursday we welcomed a delegation of young cats to the Nose Academy, where our Nez, Céleste, gave her annual introductory class. Fourteen kittens sat in a row on a long bench, each with a strip of paper, a bowl of water and an expression of hope. The first lesson was simple: smell a thing, and decide whether you are for or against it.

By the end of the afternoon, the students had identified lavender (three correctly), toast (all of them), and a hidden sardine (one student, and he was immediately offered a scholarship). Céleste declared the group “promising,” which she has said only twice in eleven years. She then retired to her cushion for a rest and, one assumes, to reflect on the future of her art.

A great perfume is judged first by its flacon and second by its box, but it is the box that is loved. We design our boxes with the same care as our scents. They are made from recycled board in the colour of a pigeon’s wing, with a lid that fits snugly enough to resist a paw but loosely enough to reward one.

Inside, a nest of tissue holds the bottle, and beneath the nest, a small card with a quotation from our founder: “Throw away the bottle. Keep the box.” We take this advice seriously. Last year, in an act we consider a triumph of branding, 71 percent of customers reported that they sleep in the box. A further 18 percent have sold the perfume and kept the box. We call this a success of unusual depth.

We have always held that a great house must be honest about its failures, and so, with some embarrassment, we open the Purrfume Outlet. Here, on a long narrow shelf above the loading bay, you will find our seconds: bottles with a scratch, a dent, a slightly wrong stopper, or a scent that came out nearer to damp cardboard than intended.

Prices are reduced by up to 60 percent. A 50 ml Warm Laptop with a tilted label is $74, and an Eau de Toilette that was once, briefly, a different thing, is $29. There are no returns, no exchanges, and no refunds, though there is, in a corner, a very small chair. Come and sit. Everyone who comes here is a little cracked, and that is what we love.

Customers sometimes ask whether Purrfume tests on animals. We are proud to say that we do not. We do, however, test on cats, who are not animals in any sense we are willing to discuss, and who volunteer for the work with an enthusiasm that would unsettle a regulator. Our panel of forty testers is paid in treats and given a pension of one nap a day.

Each tester sniffs a strip, considers it for a count of ten, and records a verdict by sitting on one of three coloured mats. Green is approval, grey is indifference, red is a complaint. Last year the panel preferred the green mat in 38 percent of trials and the box that the mats came in in 51 percent. We have therefore made the box part of the product.

In the interest of transparency, we present a short exhibition of formulas that did not reach the shelf. Wet Dog, Distant (rejected for being too close). Vacuum Cleaner at Midnight (rejected, by the testers, with a kind of screaming). Bath Water, Reconsidered (the less said, the better). And Postman (a rich, citrus accord, aborted after nine cats left the building).

We include these failures not out of shame but out of respect for the process. Every great perfume stands on a pile of wrecks, and Aurelien keeps each in a cabinet, labelled in his careful hand. Recently we were able to restore one: Distant Dog, a mild, far away, almost respectful accord of wet fur, now available at $75. It is, we feel, a triumph of distance. Nobody asked for it. We made it anyway.

Dear friends, I am sometimes asked why Purrfume does not use catnip in any of its compositions. The answer is restraint. Catnip is the loudest note in the pantry. It enters a room and refuses to leave, demanding attention, and then collapsing on the floor in a state of joyful wreckage. A great perfume does not collapse. It lingers, and it leaves you wanting.

That said, I confess that on a quiet Sunday last month I did work on a small formula, in a locked cabinet, using a single leaf. I will not describe the results. I will say only that the laboratory was rather damp afterwards, that Céleste was found asleep in the sink, and that the formula has been destroyed. Mostly. Yours in discretion, Aurelien Mewlet.

It is with great ceremony, and some reluctance, that we announce the opening of the Purrfume Atelier on Silk Street. The Atelier is a small, hushed space with a single chaise, forty seven bottles and a door that sticks. Visitors are received by appointment only, and appointments are given at the discretion of the house, which is to say, the cat on the chaise.

Here you may commission a bespoke fragrance, composed over six weeks from your own particular notes: the corner of your sofa, the dust of your favourite hall, the lingering warmth where your human last sat. Prices begin at $1,400. A consultation costs $60, and includes tea, a stern look, and an assessment of your general aura. Please arrive freshly unscented. Please arrive on time. Please do not touch the chaise.

Each Purrfume flacon is hand blown by a master glassmaker, Ignatius Cole, in a kiln that has been running since 1962. The glass is thick, faceted and weighted at the base, so that when a cat knocks it from a shelf, as one inevitably will, it bounces. We have tested this seventy three times. It broke on the seventy fourth, but we consider that an outlier.

The stopper is made of brushed brass, shaped like a mouse’s head, and designed to be removed with a paw. The box is lined in grey silk, and fastens with a ribbon that is, in our considered opinion, the ideal length for batting. Each bottle ships in a protective sleeve, a tissue wrap, and a small card reading, “Please do not push this off anything.” They will.