VOLUPTUARY
One whose life is devoted to sensual appetites, a sensualist, a pleasure-seeker.
Join us Sunday, 2-4pm, March 5th, 2017 at MAISON10, 4 W 29th St., NYC for a special VOLUPTUARY pairing event.
An Afternoon of Sensual Delights…
Fragrant, Culinary, Artistic, & Cinematic Pairings
Created for the Voluptuary in Us All.
VOLUPTUARY PAIRING EVENT 2017 from stephen dirkes on Vimeo.
PAIRINGS
An evening of Fragrance, Delicious Dessert Treats, Photography, & Film with Euphorum Brooklyn Perfumer, Stephen Dirkes, Chef Tessa Liebman, & Photographer, Tal Shpantzer brought to you by Sniffapalozza.
The three Voluptuary Set fragrances have been explored and reinterpreted as delicious Pavlova desserts. Chef Tessa Liebman’s creations expand and inform the fragrant palette as decadent sweet treats. A selection of wines will also be paired with the fragrances and deserts.
VOLUPTUARY SET FRAGRANCES
Euphorium Brooklyn Suédois, Pétales, & Chocolatl Eau de Parfum Set of 8ml decants were chosen for their sensual, decadent, and romantic aspects. Each fragrance has its own mood to set and story to tell.
VOLUPTUARY SET – Suédois, Pétales, & Chocolatl EDP Fragrance Notes from stephen dirkes on Vimeo.
SUÉDOIS
Sandalwood, Suede, Swedish Wildflowers, Raspberry, Spice, & Cream
PÉTALES
Moonlit Petals, Pink Grapefruit, Honey, Fig. Anise, Elemi, Indole & Musk
CHOCOLATL
Aztec Cocoa, Indonesian Spice, Tzapotl Fruit, Honey, Vanilla, Balsam & Musk
STEPHEN DIRKES – PERFUMER
Perfumer Stephen Dirkes’s background as a film maker and composer informs the unique, dramatic storytelling aspect that is the inspired foundation of Euphorium Brooklyn. The intricate, interrelated stories he created about a group of fictional 19th century perfumers, and then proceeded to launch the fragrances chapter by chapter to tell the tale, not surprisingly draw heavily from his personal experience as a multi-media storyteller and creator of olfactive art installations.
As a perfumer, the Voluptuary Set was an unbridaled, bold exploration of sensuality and edible, ‘foody’ fragrance notes. A traditional gourmand palette was expanded by pairing accords featuring rich creamy notes, bright spices, dark fruits, and sweet syrups with smoky leather, earthy roots, balsams, and florals. Dirkes writes about “Transcendental Sensualism” fictionally in the Euphorium Brooklyn story and strived to express the idea of something decadent and compelling on a base and pleasurable level (cream, honey, cocoa, spice, sugar, etc) and meld that with something much darker, bitter, medicinal, ritualistic… verging on drug-like.
For Dirkes, this is an exhilarating opportunity to collaborate with chef Tessa Leibman and experience her culinary interpretation of the Voluptuary Set fragrances. The deeply layered relationship of fragrance and flavor in the stories behind the collection come together to find perfect expression in this event.
Stephen’s collaborative work with photographer Tal Shpantzer continues with the Pétales fragrance inspired by her Petal Portrait photo series featured in the Voluptuary Set and in the new Voluptuary film they created in tandem for the event. Working together on set, Tal and Stephen created a dark and decadent Film Noir-tinged world for the Voluptuary Set.
TESSA LIEBMAN – CHEF
Chef Tessa Liebman says it is her job to use her senses at all times, to listen for sizzling, to feel for stray bones in fish, to smell for ripeness, to check the color of a crust, etc. She found a special kinship when she began working with perfumers several years ago. “They are as nerdy, snobby, sensual and secretive as we chefs”, Liebman says. “It is beautiful to work with people who care about the provenance of ingredients, love to tell stories and are nostalgic and completely in the moment at the same time”. This is what she loves about cooking and admires in perfumery.
The upcoming collaboration with Stephen Dirkes of Emporium Brooklyn is especially exciting for Liebman, as she finds him exceptionally knowledgeable about ingredients—who grows them, where, how and what has changed or become better sourced synthetically. She also appreciates that he’s tremendously interested in art and the people who created movements around art, coming from a visual background with film. Together Dirkes and Liebman have orchestrated a special installation with the perfect vehicle for fragrances to be translated into flavors—the magical Pavlova dessert. There will be creams, curds, candies, meringues, garnishes, crispy bits, dense and airy textures, all as ephemeral expressions of Euphorium Brooklyn’s Voluptuary Trio Set.
TAL SHPANTZER – PHOTOGRAPHER
“In The Petal Series, Tal Shpantzer both enhances and challenges the traditional relationship, symbolism and depiction of flowers associated with female subjects“. Marilena Hatoupis, writer/curator.
PÉTALES is an intimate collaboration between perfumer Stephen Dirkes of Euphorium Brooklyn and photographer Tal Shpantzer that brings her series of photographic portraits, The Petal Series, to life as a perfume. Shpantzer and Dirkes have interpreted the atmosphere and richness of the portraits as well as the emotional and psychological framework in olfactive form. As Tal Shpantzer’s partner, Dirkes witnessed The Petal Series evolve from inception and collaborated with Shpantzer to bring the individual notes and accords together as fragrance.
Shpantzer said: ‘Bringing a two-dimensional surface, a photograph, into the world of scent was a challenge. Tailored to the scents I love, PETALES, is deeply connected to my personal history. Years in the making, PÉTALES is a labor of love.’
The evening also offers a special sneak peek screening of the “Voluptuary #535” short film. (Official Selection World Premier at La Jolla International Fashion Film Festival 2017)
VOLUPTUARY TRAILER 0:30 from stephen dirkes on Vimeo.
More info on the Voluptuary Set
Thank you Hernando Patrick Courtright and EIC Michelyn Camen of Calfleurebon for this wonderful write up of the Voluptuary Pairing event!
Thank you Tracy Iglesias of Ascending Butterfly for this lovely review of the Voluptuary Pairing event.