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Interview by Azar
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Hello APJ,
In a recent
APJ post, Peety, the new fragrance by O’DRIÙ, drew critical comments from almost every direction. Some people were amused or repulsed by the idea of adding their own urine to a perfume. Others were wary of O’DRIÙ’S marketing strategies.
Today I am excited to have the opportunity to ask questions and speak with the perfumer himself. Thank you so much, Mr. Pregoni, for visiting us here at APJ.
Angelo Orazio Pregon Interview: Peety by O’Driu
Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Tobacco, jasmine, rose, sandalwood, tonka bean and pink pepper
In addition to a perfumer you are also a poet and a performance artist. O’DRIÙ is obviously selling fine fragrances in the luxury market. How do you reconcile the constraints and often-conservative outlook of luxury and niche with the freedom and innovation that is performance art? Have you ever had to “reformulate” your perfumes or your aesthetic to conform to the image of the luxury goods marketplace?
I believe that luxury or, if we prefer, the extreme version of tastes towards high cost products, is a phenomenon which is still fighting against illuminist’s wastes. Illuminism is the background of the same cosmopolitism; on the other hand it has drawn the attention towards the ideals of freedom of thought giving to France the cultural leadership in the western area.
Since then, the rational approach has been adopted for the aesthetic experience also, trying to bring back the reflection on the subject of the canon of beauty under an objective condition. This has led to a lack of aesthetic values and, as an effect of this, also led to the idea of “taste” as merely subjective.
So, subjective “tastes” could even sublimate the “classical” beauty… preferring something ugly but with the power to awaken emotionalism in the human soul.
The current, motionless fashion world is imbued by this idea of “taste” as it was an ultimate achievement which no one could leave from. By the way, Andy Warhol pointed out that the “pop” taste (the masses’ one) was going to be the new rule in taste! Well, fashion world seems uncertain between two opposite roads: persisting in a rigid vision about luxury or embracing the ultra-commercial consumerist horizon. As a Nose and as an artist I’m trying to go back to the subjective roots of taste, and to propose them as the real meaning of luxury.
I regenerated my thoughts starting from non western anthropological and cultural concept. From these ideas Peety has been conceived: an exclusive and luxury perfume, which (after ten drops of pee) becomes a not reproducible and “su misura” one; a creation which has truly “pop” marketing characteristics, as well as primeval, superstitious or magical meanings. Peety is my contribution to luxury and art: a fetish perfume!
Peety’s classical profile and the suggested addition of urine can’t help but bring to mind the portraits of Robert Mapplethorpe and the controversial 1987 photo series Immersion by Andres Serrano . Have you been at all influenced by the work of Mapplethorpe or Serrano?
Peety, the very first perfume which becomes a “su misura” after ten drops of pee, has given me the opportunity to put together cultural and artistic concepts, using perfume as a language, with an unpredictable “pop” energy.
Just a few day ago, Andy Cohen –a TV top manager and talk show host- collected Lady Gaga’s pee making a perfume from it, I think that it stems from a sort of viral spreading. Peety is someway a threshold: before of it, the creation of perfume using some pee was simply unproposable, after Peety it doesn’t create sensation anymore, it has become an anti-establishment paradigm. At the same time Peety consolidated a different kind of approach to smells and to their ancestral meanings. Peety is the past and the future of perfumery: it was launched in September 2013 and already it’s a part of perfumery history.
Each artist, somehow, plunges its roots in other artists issues. I have to say that I feel myself close to Urs Lüthi’s provocative work, and to its very first body art concept, full of irony and without signs of tragicalness.
Peety rejects at the same time the mawkish and sexualizing clichés of todays perfumery; it looks at the outer world, to the wide set of visual stimulus which continuously surround and tempt us, what ones could call “the urban folklore”.
This is why the Peety advertising generates a linguistic chaos: it embodies masculine and feminine, the Virgin and Lawrence of Arabia, Rudolph Valentine and a nun too.
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Could you describe a few of the fragrance notes and a little about the chemistry of Peety? How did you know that urine would work better in this composition than in another?
Peety is a powerful and unexpected perfume. It opens itself with some liberty tones, between yellow tangerine, sweet orange and cinnamon. Then it changes, and we enter in a dance room with tangos and milongas, tobacco notes, castoreum, woods, pink pepper. Later, it finds the levity o a rose kissing a woman neck, or the elation of the jasmine, under the dark elegant black of a fine man.
An exotic smell of vanilla emerges from moss and patchouli, with ethnical stains which are made ancestral by the Tonka beans.
But the only way to achieve Peety’s complete roundness is adding ten drops of pee. Water, salt and the acid elements in urine react with alcohol and perfume ingredients; they slightly oxidize the perfume leading to some carboxylic acids generation, and this gives an original, unrepeatable “stain” to each Peety.
Now, one can smell fruits traces, while some animal notes give room to more pungent perceptions which complete and “close” the perfume. It’s important to say that, in no way, adding pee can link the final result to what one has eaten. Nevertheless, a strong psychical element exists when one uses this “added” version of Peety. It’s something like an unconscious self-satisfaction; it seems that this feeling modifies the way our brain controls secretions, changing our body odors, and making it more attractive.
Last question: I know that I can purchase samples of Peety at Surrender to Chance and from your O’DRIÙ websites. Will your fragrances be available soon from other retailers, online or otherwise?
Really? We don’t have any distributor for our samples! The only chance to have Peety and Eva Kant samples is to order them on our odriu.com store.
Indeed, Peety and Eva Kant samples are sent with an art work from me: it’s made in a very limited series, only 100 pieces. As in O’DRIÙ samples tradition, the cost is a very affordable one. We are focusing on the creation of an European network of retailers but or e-commerce works in almost the entire world -except a few countries- with the same price all over the world, handling & shipping included…
Finally, Azar, let me allow to thank you and Portia for giving me the opportunity to answer to your kind questions, and to thank your readers also, for their patience!
Peety is available from the O’Driu site €150/49ml
Surrender To Chance starts at $6/.5ml
Photo Stolen TheTruthAboutMummy
Peety by O’Driu GIVEAWAY
WHAT CAN YOU WIN?
This week we will have FIVE winners:
2 MAIN WINNERS who will each receive:
1 x 49ml Peety™ bottle
P&H Anywhere in the world
3 RUNNER UPS who will each receive:
1 x Peety™ Sample Kits
P&H Anywhere in the world
HOW DO YOU WIN?
Open to everyone worldwide who follows AustralianPerfumeJunkies via eMail, WordPress, Bloglovin or RSS. Please leave how you follow in the comments to be eligible. I must be able to check that you follow so if you have an email address on your gravatar that’s different to your follow address then please email me so I know. Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged.
You must tell me how you follow APJ and tell us would you personalise the product or not and why.
Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie Peety O’Driu GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-2lX #Perfume #Giveaway @ODRIUperfumes
HOUSEKEEPING
Entries Close Sunday 5th January 2014 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org or some other more fun way at the discretion of Azar, our host for this giveaway
The winners will have till Wednesday 5th January 2014 to get in touch (portia underscore turbo at yahoo dot com dot au) with their address or the prize will go to someone else.
No responsibility taken for lost or damaged goods in transit.
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Photo Stolen Wikipedia
Australian Perfume Junkies 