Fresh flowers at the entrance, incense somewhere in the background, food travelling through rooms, mirrorwork catching every available sliver of light and, by the time the party fills up, possibly 50 different fragrances competing for airtime. Deciding what to spray into the sensory cocktail of Indian festivities requires a little more strategy than reaching for whichever bottle is closest.
On the occasion of Arpita Mehta’s second festive collaboration with Jo Malone London, Vogue spoke to the designer and Anton Denver, the fragrance house’s education director, EUEM, about how scent and festive dressing can work together rather than compete for attention.
For Mehta, fragrance belongs in the same conversation as fabric, colour and jewellery. “Your outfit is important, but your fragrance is one of the best accessories that you could have on you,” she says. And much like an accessory, it can either echo everything else you are wearing or throw it deliberately off balance.
So, how do you approach fragrance layering?
For a daytime celebration, play with light and warmth
Think of an afternoon puja or festive lunch: fluid fabrics, softer colours and an outfit that needs to survive several hours of socialising. Mehta reaches for chanderi as an example. “It’s lightweight, comfortable, warm,” she says, instinctively pairing that feeling with something floral, soft and similarly fluid.
That doesn’t mean richer Indian fragrance notes are banned before sunset. Anton Denver, education director, EUEM, Jo Malone London, argues that oud, amber and spice can work beautifully during the day when something brighter gives them breathing room. “Perhaps oud paired with citrus or florals,” he suggests.
The trick, in other words, is not necessarily less fragrance, but contrast.
It’s also the idea underpinning Mehta’s latest collaboration with Jo Malone London, which brings her signature mirrorwork into the fragrance house’s festive gifting ritual through embroidered and potlis and a velvet bag with interchangeable straps. “It’s about exploring the space between fragrance, fashion and gifting,” Mehta says. Rather than translating one literally into the other, she wanted to find “a common language” between colour, texture, craftsmanship and scent, with keepsakes designed to stay in your wardrobe for years to come.
For the wedding where everything already smells like something, simplify
The flowers smell like flowers, the food smells delicious, someone has lit incense and the person standing next to you has also discovered oud. A crowded wedding is not necessarily the moment to layer every beautiful bottle you own.
