Still smell like everyone else?

The era of Prada, Dior or Armani fragrances verweht. Eccentric, novel or imaginative creations mini runs of small independent perfume labels are the big trend in business with the fragrance. The extraordinary fragrances find more and more fans, despite the crisis and twirl the entire industry.

Fashion and trade fairs - especially in the Berlin Fashion Week has come to an end, before the men's fashion week in Milan, will soon be in Paris haute couture shows. So it continues, with fashion through the year. Always somewhere is fair. Even in Dusseldorf. But the perfume fair there has as yet not heard. Anyway: While owe the big fashion brands, a significant part of their sales transactions with the license smells, but perfumes reporting falls compared with those on the collections from puny. The fact that a newspaper like the New York Times perfume critic even a busy, seems so bizarre to.

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He says Chandler Burr. The industry says the new verdict on Burr'sche fragrances was feared. Recently he came to Dusseldorf. Likewise, Karen Dubin, Founder of "Sniffapalooza", the world's largest perfume community with 500,000 members. The occasion was the first German exhibition scent. Around 50 companies exclusive crowd in the exhibition room, rose and jasmine notes combine with musk and vanilla flavors, cinnamon, mint, bergamot, cedar buzz about, moss and Sandelholzakkorden. The air is thin. And no haze of Guerlain, Gucci, Prada, Dior, Armani. Here are the names of the Stars: Mona di Orio, Humiecki & Graef, Profumi di Firenze, Les Parfums Suspendus, Andreas Liberec, Canali, Emeshel, Esteban, Hierbas or de Ibiza Histoires de Parfums. All of 'niche brands "and being part of the most successful trends in the Morning Post Online fragrancy. Complaints major international fragrance houses on sales difficulties, so there is a growing "niche": 34 percent of industry sales going to their account. 2000, there were still three percent.

Creations with limited edition
What we called niche scents (yes, the child had a commercial-industrial property name), is in the U.S. euphonious with "indie-Scents" means. These are creations with limited edition (usually limited), only very selectively distributed. Made of small, private, independent firms.

So far still not exciting. What fragrance freaks however bliss can sneeze, the noses and their creative visions. They are in niche perfumes in the foreground, next to the pure "juice" of course. Designers and Parfümeure like James Heeley, Mona di Orio Michel Roudnitska or see their work as an homage to the traditional art and craft of Parfümeurs to each its own unique scent character, coupled with a unique modern twist. Here they can be guided by nothing other than personal preferences, emotions and memories. And they use rare and precious natural resources in high concentrations. "The average price for a kilo of base used is now $ 20. We use oils that cost ten times. Even 3000 per kilo come before, "says Geoffrey Newman, creative mind behind Parfums M. Micallef.

And the smell is - at best, even overwhelming. For example, when Christophe Laudamiel, a great "nose", feeling as melancholy moments ( "Skarb"), anger ( "Askew") or foolish devotion ( "Multiple Rouge") for the cubist bottles of Humiecki & Graef composed.

Niche fragrances tick differently
The secret to their success: Niche fragrances are absolutely ruthless. They are created without a thought to what the employee Parfümeur a major fragrance company now mainly in mind when he for example, a new fragrance concept for a fashion label is to implement: Is it the global mass taste of Buenos Aires to Seoul, are high volume of the same quality for years to achieve, does it all at the lowest possible cost? Niche fragrances tick differently.

"A smell, the world in huge run for years at a reasonable price must be available to, can not with the most expensive jasmine or rose oil produced. However, because the quantity does not exist and the quality varies. The risk for large companies is too great, "says Thorsten Biehl, in Berlin" Biehl. Perfume artworks "operates. A gallery for niche perfumes, the perfume of your opportunity, without regard to limits in expressing their creations. These include, for example, Geza Schön, who with his "Molecule 01" already fragrance junkies from all over the world has become addicted. Schön plays favorite with only a single material with Iso E Super, a substance that is as similar to the Sexuallockstoffen traded.

For trend experts, the success of the niche as no surprise: "For decades fragrances reflect social aspirations. They stand for the things that are desirable and their carrier status recognition. Today it is the desire for individuality, the celebration of the personality with all its facets, which characterizes our society, "says trend expert Susanne Köhler from Zukunftsinstitut in Kelkheim. So now travel lovers from all over Germany regularly in private to perfumeries, like Albrecht in Frankfurt or Hamburg Lubner, browse in search of secret Internet portals such as "For Love of the scent."

The price always plays less a role. "More and more customers are ready for a unique fragrance experience a lot of money," confirms David Albrecht, Associate Chief of perfumery Albrecht in Frankfurt. To sell, for example, the perfume of eau de Cognac heir Kilian Hennessy especially in the "Fountain", a shiny black one-liter kegs, as self-liter Price: 2000 Euro.

Good smells come from anywhere
Fragrances are a niche per se, but not always better than the big houses. "Even from the most expensive ingredients, expensive crap you can make," commented expert Chandler Burr in Dusseldorf the current hype. "Good smells come from anywhere. Again, there are companies that are easy to jump up and Trendzug on the ticket of the exceptional ride. And there are large firms that smells artificial shortage to the appearance of niche to awaken. "

So continues: Nose to receive and curiosity ran to each of the approximately 500 new bottles, per year. You should note, however, sometimes the March 2010. Since fragrance is the next trade fair in Düsseldorf. Even now, one thing is clear: it is very, very much bigger.