The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
This fragrance began as a sensory element in a film. British artist Shezad Dawood had created a speculative filmmaking experiment, a collaborative piece imagining a community formed in response to theoretical environmental collapse, where the rules of society, gender, and intimacy were given new expression. ICONOFLY approached Nicolas Bonneville with a singular request: translate this vision into scent. Not illustrate it. Become it. The brief evolved as the collaboration proceeded. What started as an accompanying note became the landscape itself, then the people, their skin, their clothes, their breath. The blend carries destruction and tenderness in the same breath, decay and beauty refusing to be separated.
The composition refuses easy categorization. Ambergris anchors the top, bringing warmth that feels like late afternoon light on water. Sea notes bring the mineral clarity of open water, while the heart layers suede against violet and tonka bean. Patchouli grounds everything without darkening it. The base holds incense and musk, smoke curling into skin rather than room. What makes this structure unusual is its interplay between contrasts: the marine and the animalic, the soft and the grounded, the smoky and the sweet.
The evolution
Ambergris opens the composition, bringing oceanic warmth that rises beneath the surface. Sea notes follow, offering mineral clarity that blends with the ambergris rather than competing against it. Aquatic elements interweave throughout the opening, creating a layered first impression. Smoke begins to appear early on, not as a dominant element but as a quiet presence waiting beneath the surface. The suede arrives next, soft and worn, not harsh but inviting. Violet adds dusty sweetness that tonka bean deepens into something almost edible, never cloying. Patchouli threads through, grounding without darkening. This middle phase holds the fragrance's character, a quiet smoky-violet that breathes close to skin. Incense emerges in the later stages, frankincense, resinous and contemplative, held in place by musk that feels intimate and close.
Cultural impact
This fragrance exists at the boundary between art object and wearable scent. Born from a collaboration with filmmaker Shezad Dawood for a Pioneer Works exhibition, it was designed to function as a sensory element in an immersive environment before becoming a standalone perfume. That dual origin shapes its character: it wears like a landscape, atmospheric and contemplative. The work invites a particular kind of attention, rewarding those who engage with scent as a form of cultural inquiry.
