The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Topia arrived in 2018 from the Hamburg studio of PMP Perfumes Mayr Plettenberg, co-created by Mark Buxton and David Chieze. The brief was simple on paper: a scent that smelled like the moment winter surrenders. Buxton and Chieze reached for mate, that slightly bitter South American leaf that smells like tobacco's more interesting cousin. Raspberry added sweetness without softness. Incense brought smoke without ceremony. The result is a fragrance that earns its utopian name, not by being perfect, but by being exactly what it is.
What makes Topia unusual is the mate-tobacco duet in the heart. Most fragrances treat mate as a supporting actor, a green-woody bridge between top and base. Here, it shares equal billing with blond tobacco, and the combination creates something rare: a smoky sweetness that doesn't lean into warmth or coolness exclusively. The rhubarb in the opening is also worth noting, tart, almost astringent, it doesn't smell like candy or dessert. It smells like the plant itself, green stems and all. That botanical honesty carries through to the sage, which reappears in the base after functioning as a top note.
The evolution
The opening hits bright and tart, blood orange, rhubarb, a flash of ginger heat. The sage is there too, green and slightly medicinal, grounding the citrus before it can float away. Within twenty minutes, the heart takes over. Incense rises first, then mate, then the blond tobacco. The raspberry is subtle, more suggestion than statement, a sweetness that flickers rather than announces. By the third hour, the drydown arrives. Vetiver and cedar dominate, with oak wood lending structure and musk providing the close skin warmth. The sage reappears, now dry and herbaceous rather than fresh. Six to eight hours is realistic on most skin. On fabric, it lingers until the next morning, a faint woody-green ghost that makes you reach for the bottle again.
Cultural impact
Topia sits in a specific niche: green-smoky compositions that don't default to summer freshness or winter warmth. The 2018 launch placed it alongside a wave of 'complex green' fragrances, but its use of mate and incense set it apart from the herbaceous-garde of that period. Wearers who connect with it tend to describe it as the fragrance they reach for when they want to smell like they've thought about it, not tried everything, but thought about it.
