Sephora’s Sensorium Builds A New Culture Of Fragrance Appreciation
The make up retailer collaborates with age old scent company, Firmenich, to create a participatory exhibit about the history of perfume.
Set in New York’s Meatpacking District, the make up company, Sephora, has collaborated with perfumery-specialists Firmenich to create a “pop-up museum” concept titled Sensorium. The interactive journey is driven by the need to introduce consumers to a new way to think about scent.
The exhibition focuses on ‘scent memory,’ tactile experiences, the history of perfumery, and its connection to beauty. References include a wide-range of intimate and eccentric scent experiences. Visitors start off in the “lucid dreams” room, where they engage with breathing-activated scented videos and move on through several phases to “rediscover the magic of fragrance” by exploring the:
- History of perfumery (making it, how we think about it and interact with it)
- The brain’s primal reaction to fragrance and what it’s like to live without it
- Often overlooked connection between scent and daily activities
- Chemistry behind scent-creation and how processes such as extraction and blending can generate specific feelings and responses
The exhibit ends at The Fragrance Bar, where visitors are prompted to describe provocative unlabeled scents and categorize them. There’s also the unforgettable encounter with upcycled chandeliers made out of famous perfume bottles.
Overall, Sensorium provides a great example of how empowering a brand’s presence can be made by walking the fine line between education and entertainment. Sephora already has a well-established digital community of fans and followers, so this specific execution was guaranteed to get traction on social media.
The exhibition is open to those in New York till November 27 of this year. The admission costs is only $15 and is redeemable at any Sephora store.
Follow Sensorium on Twitter here.