Heritage
A house, in its own words
Paul Schütze was born in Melbourne and initially pursued training as a visual artist before shifting into music composition, where he worked as an award-winning composer and musician. His relationship with fragrance began unexpectedly, rooted in what he has described as an obsession with the often-overlooked sensory dimensions of everyday experience. The composer and musician spent thirty years in London, developing a multidisciplinary practice that informed his approach to scent as a form of spatial storytelling. In 2014, Schütze created his first fragrance, though he did not release what he considers his proper debut collection until 2016. That year, alongside partner Chris Rickwood, he officially established Paul Schütze Perfume and launched three founding eaux de parfum: Tears of Eros, Behind the Rain, and Cirebon. The house immediately positioned itself outside the traditional fragrance industry structure, operating as an anti-conventional voice in a tradition-saturated market. Architecture has remained a consistent source of inspiration for the house, evident in later releases including Cuadra (2017) and Villa M (2017), both developed over approximately one year of development. In 2022, Schütze and Rickwood relocated from London, marking a new chapter for the house while maintaining its independent ethos. Schütze approaches perfumery as an artist working across media, not as a traditional nose following industry conventions. His compositions emerge from a conceptual framework that treats scent as a way of sculpting atmosphere and evoking memory, rather than adhering to market categories like masculine, feminine, or seasonal. He has described himself as an anti-conventionalist within the fragrance world, and this positioning shapes how the house develops and presents its work. Architecture repeatedly surfaces in his creative language, with buildings serving as both literal inspiration and metaphorical structure for fragrance development. Rather than chasing trends or following commercial fragrance hierarchies, Schütze selects materials and constructs compositions based on their emotional and experiential resonance. His background in music composition informs a sensitivity to notes, timing, and the unfolding of a fragrance over time, treating the wearing experience as a kind of performance with distinct movements. This interdisciplinary foundation distinguishes the house from both artisanal perfumers working within traditional frameworks and niche houses following established aesthetic conventions.