Can Design Smell?

The Short Answer: Not Literally—But It Gets Close

Not literally (unless something’s leaked), but in 2025, it kind of has to. In a world ruled by screens and scrolls, scent doesn’t get to go first—it needs a visual cue, a design nudge. No more perfume-soaked magazine pages. Now, branding has to hint at the notes before the cap even comes off.

Fragrance as Fantasy: How Design Sells the Mood

Perfume has always been more than a product. It’s a portal. Think of David Lynch’s surreal ad for YSL Opium: red light, strange shadows, full fever dream energy. Or those vintage Guerlain campaigns—dripping in painterly drama and decadent typography. Perfume design doesn’t just decorate a scent—it writes its myth.

Wallpaper Magazine. | A screenshot from David Lynch’s 2008 perfume commercial | 📸: Gucci.

Because scent is emotional. It skips logic and heads straight for memory, desire, and atmosphere. The challenge? Capture all of that—without a single molecule of fragrance. Just visuals, language, and vibe.

Scent Becomes Visual: The Case of D.S. & Durga

Design duo Wade and Leta turn fragrance into dreamscape for indie label D.S. & Durga. Their method? Treat scent like a creative brief—full of music, colour palettes, and mood boards. Then translate that into one striking image.

D.S. & Durga.

For Burning Barbershop, a scent imagined from an 1891 fire, they created a visual of a wax-dripped hand, on fire, gripping the bottle like a relic. It wasn’t about sadness—it was about myth. It looked like something you’d pull from the ashes of a storybook.

D.S. & Durga.

“If the design is the guardrail,” Wade once said, “we’re the 4WD going off-road.” And the results? Totally unmissable.

A Softer Approach: Clue Perfumery and the Power of Symbolism

Clue Perfumery plays a quieter hand. Designer Caleb Vanden Boom leans into subtlety—visuals that feel like memory. For their debut scents, Clue brought in a different artist for each blend:

Clue Perfumery.

• Morel Map with earthy, loose lines

• With the Candlestick with bold, gothic permanence

• Warm Bulb with soft yellows and dreamy domestic scenes

Each bottle tells a story before it’s even opened. Colour does just as much lifting: Warm Bulb’s dusty yellow feels warm to the touch. The Point (jasmine tea brewed in ocean water) comes in a cartoonish ocean blue. They’re quiet cues for your nose.

Clue Perfumery.

Even Clue’s typography is chosen for feel: dense or light, soft or sharp. And their animated logo? A slow dissolve, mirroring how scent lifts, lingers, and disappears.

Minimalism, Maxed Out: Oddity Fragrance

Oddity Fragrance—launched by Hong Kong design studio Oddity—leans into the idea of the “visible-invisible.” Their brand identity is spare and architectural, letting their sculptural resin caps take center stage. Each is one-of-a-kind, rough-edged and raw, like something unearthed.

Founder Alice Mourou says it best: “The cap did it all.” And she’s not wrong.

Oddity Fragrance.

Scents & Sensibility: When Art Goes Eau de Parfum

In 2025, perfume isn’t just something you spritz before leaving the house—it’s something you frame, install, and walk through slowly with your hands behind your back. Fragrance and art are officially in their collaborative era. Painters, sculptors, and digital dreamers are lending their palettes to perfume houses, and the results? Straight-up immersive vibes.

Maison Margiela’s Replica line reads like scent-based impressionism—bottling memories the way Monet captured morning light.

Maison Margiela.

Maison Margiela.

Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle taps into the visual moodboard too, teaming up with photographers and designers to make packaging that looks like it belongs in a gallery.

And then there’s Diptyque and Byredo, who’ve gone full installation mode, building exhibitions that turn scent into a multi-sensory art form.

Studio XAG.

Studio XAG.

Studio XAG.

It’s not just about smelling good anymore. It’s about being moved—visually, emotionally, and yes, nasally.

So... Can Design Smell?

Not exactly. But it builds the mood. It sets the stage. It gives us a sense of what’s coming before our senses do. And when we do finally take a whiff? It feels like everything falls into place. Like the scent was already familiar—already waiting.

We Blend for the Nose, Not Just the Tongue

At Barbet, we think about flavour the same way fragrance brands think about scent. Our blends were developed to smell as good as they taste—layered, aromatic, and designed to make your nose do a double-take before you even sip.

Each blend starts with a sensory idea. Then we build it out, note by note:

• Love Bite: Pink grapefruit hits first, followed by an twist of ginger and juniper.

• Wild Card: Blood Orange and calamansi bring the sweet-citrus drama, spiced up by jalepeño.

• Deep Dive: White Peach, yuzu, and a flash of mint—it’s ocean air in a can.

• Light Wave: Cucumber and Pineapple with a soft focus of lavender.

Blends, Not Flavours

We call them blends because they’re more than flavours—they’re moods. Aromas. Little portals that open the moment you crack a can. They’re not just about refreshment; they’re about memory, atmosphere, and the feeling of “oh wow, what is that?”

Because just like a great fragrance, a great drink doesn’t have to explain itself. It just has to make you feel something.