The Imaginarium

The new territory of olfactive exploration dreamed up by Liquides Imaginaires

OLFACTORY
LABORATORY

This is not a laboratory like any other, but a garden of delight
where everything becomes possible as soon as the gates of the imagination are opened. An Eden where suddenly everything becomes hybridized, everything
becomes heteroclite, contradictory, and, finally, unexpected.

THE IMAGINARIUM germinated in the mind of Philippe Di Méo, who
wanted to reinvent the creative process by asking himself a question: how to fertilize the imagination of the perfumer while letting other possibilities blossom?

In this thinking, musing space, principles and materials fuse,
customized extracts (essence of blood orange heart) are joyfully mixed with upcycled ingredients (the whole of mandarin orange, a simultaneous extraction of the flesh, the fruit, and the zest) in a great creative patchwork, and humans share creation without any complex with Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

Theater of experimental fantasy, great recreation of the senses, THE IMAGINARIUM makes hybridization its new creative language.

CITRUS PERFUMES

To transcend habit even more, Philippe Di Méo has entrusted the
keys of creation to seven students at the Givaudan's perfume school. A real hybrid collective with a fertile spirit rather than a juxtaposition of creative individualities to whom he submitted a mandate in three words: reinvent the Hesperides.

That’s the name given to citrus fruits in perfumery: tonic, cheerful notes that we don’t usually expect from Liquides Imaginaires, which
tends rather to cultivate the mystery of the sacred. These young sprouts were free to overturn established norms and imagine a gallery of fruit that nature hasn’t even conceived of. This reciprocal metamorphosis caused to be born under our eyes hybrid Buddha’s hands with gourmand notes (BUDDHA BLEND), surprisingly spicy mandarin (MANDARIN SAFFRON), citron as creamy as a meringue tart (SEDUCTIVE CITRON).

A profusion of neo-citrus born from an expert hybridization
between mythology and art. The garden of the Hesperides crossed with the succulent, hyperrealist work of Dennis Wojtkiewicz. 

HYBRIDIZATION

In this dreamed-up world that is THE IMAGINARIUM, citruses that grow in profusion have neither the same taste, nor the same shape, nor above all the same smell as those on our shelves.

Fruit of the imagination of these young creatives without habits or certainties, these hybridized citruses completely renew the varieties that, when it comes down to it, are not very numerous, which are available to the perfumer’s
talent.

With the help of Alexandre Lepage, Philippe Di Méo began by studying the phylogeny of citrus fruit, fruits endowed with a faculty for infinite hybridization, by patiently reconstituting the genealogical tree of the genus citrus.
Starting from this botanical matrix, illustrated with the complicity of the DELO studio, the creator imagined new families to welcome the phantasmagorical creations of new noses.

CITRUS IMAGINARI

The imagination is an inverted world that takes shape in our thoughts. In this superior and magical universe everything is possible.

By the force of visualisation we can create objects, projects, houses, fish, animals, friends, loves and even the most beautiful tree. The upside-down tree is celestial. Its roots are nourished by spirituality, beauty, the unknown, and mystery. It spreads its colourful and juicy fruits towards the earthly world, from sky to ground. Its nature is rich and its fruits of the gifts of heaven
with infinite powers. Its fruits do not grow according to the seasons but are the fruit of our imagination. They are pure creations. In this dream world, a family of citrus hydrides and unknown citrus fruits have grown. Each of them has its own personality and taste and olfactory properties. From bitter to gourmand, from fresh to spicy, from exotic to ambery, they represent a journey through the olfactory world.
Ph Di Méo

We’d so like to know one what tree these hybridized citruses can grow in the imagination. Philippe Di Méo has granted this wish by asking the artist Laurentine Périlhou to materialize its offshoots in macrame, his fetish material.

The admirable tree was exhibited in the Rossana Orlandi Gallery in Milan, during Design Week (April 15-21). 

LAURENTINE
PERILHOU

Laurentine Périlhou is an artist, a thread artisan, specialized in macramé techniques. She learned empirically from a Chilean artisan during a trip to South America in 2009. She embraced this manual textile art based on a succession of knots, which is completely unknown in the diversity of forms it can take, to bring it into her own universe.

At the beginning of her journey, Laurentine Périlhou was interested in creating adornments combining gemstones and macramé. Since 2018, she has been using her expertise in the realms of object, space, and fashion for both lasting and ephemeral, high-end, and luxury projects. This quickly allowed her to explore numerous realms and have the opportunity to collaborate with prestigious houses
such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Loewe, Balmain, Dior, Hermès, and Martell.

Since 2021 she has been developing a personal artistic approach in which the botanical theme takes center stage. This expertise thus becomes the medium through which the idea takes shape. The notion of gesture, of craftsmanship, is intimately linked here to time and meticulousness.

L’Herbier Sauvage, 2022, and Sous le Citronnier, Les Fleurs, 2023 - presented at the Biennials "Révélations, Paris," mark the beginning of this new artistic exploration.

For this piece, Laurentine Perilhou partnered with Audrey Bruneau, a basket weaver for over 10 years. Audrey creates unique, delicate, and expressive pieces by combining mastery of ancestral basket weaving techniques with original and deeply contemporary artistic research. Audrey Bruneau crafted the trunk of the lemon tree from white willow splints, which was then adorned with leaves and lemons in macramé.

AGENT — THIERRY KAUFFMANN