Heritage
A house, in its own words
Barnabé Fillion built his reputation through longstanding collaborations with the Australian skincare and fragrance brand Aesop, where he contributed to several notable compositions. His work extended into the contemporary art world through partnerships with artists like Anicka Yi, whose interdisciplinary practice often explores sensory perception and biological systems. These experiences shaped Fillion's conviction that fragrance could serve purposes beyond conventional perfumery. In 2020, he founded Arpa Studios as a vehicle for this expanded vision, drawing on his French heritage and the country's historical relationship with perfumery. The studio launched without the traditional fanfare of a heritage house, presenting itself instead as an ongoing research project. By 2023, the brand unveiled its first complete collection of seven fragrances, representing what Fillion described as a systematic exploration of olfactory territory. The following year, Arpa Studios partnered with the Paris concept store The Broken Arm for an immersive installation running from January 20 to 24, 2025, marking the debut of three new compositions through a multi-sensory presentation that aligned with the brand's broader artistic ambitions. Arpa Studios rejects the conventional perfume house model where fragrance serves primarily as a luxury consumer product. Instead, the studio treats scent as a starting point for broader creative exploration, particularly investigating synesthesia, the phenomenon where stimulation of one sensory pathway triggers responses in another. The house describes itself as a laboratory, emphasizing experimentation over commercial orthodoxy. Fillion has spoken about fragrance as a medium capable of accessing emotions and perceptions that resist verbal expression, positioning Arpa's work closer to conceptual art than traditional perfumery. This philosophy manifests in the brand's collaborative structure, where external creatives contribute perspectives that inform how compositions develop. The studio's approach suggests that fragrance knowledge should remain in continuous flux, with each project challenging assumptions about what perfume can accomplish. Rather than launching scents with marketing narratives centered on mood or occasion, Arpa presents its work as propositions for sensory investigation.