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Hordes of New Yorkers made the pilgrimage to MoMA PS1 for Printed Matter’s annual Art Book Fair, a dazzling celebration of printed media in all its numerous forms. The ambient aroma of ink and glossy pages seemed to cast a spell on the hundreds of attendees as they snaked their way through the museum, flipping through a boundless landscape of pages.
The physical selection of texts was nothing short of invigorating, but the overall experience was equally so. That is, that of watching a community coalesce around a shared reverence for books. In our current timeline, it often feels as though the digital has subsumed all other areas of life, making it easy to despair. (To wit: we would even print this newsletter if we could.) Yet the love of physical media has far from disappeared. In fact, one can confidently argue that it has been galvanized by this pervasive digitization.
People no longer want pre-digested material. We want things that are rare, rough around the proverbial edges, hard to find and harder still to understand. We want narratives that we can clasp between our two hands.
I am reminded thus of the necessary relationship between the textual and the olfactory. Perfume could hardly exist as it does today without the efforts of printed media (there is a perennial desire to accurately bottle the scent of “book”). I’m sure that many, if not all, of Serviette’s readers have fond memories nestled between the perfumed pages of fashion magazines. There were few better feelings than that of flipping to a fragrance ad with a sample strip tucked coyly inside and hungrily tearing it out—the mixture of dried pulp and envelope glue and the scent itself made for a unique interpretation of the perfume counter. A kind of alchemy seemed to take place between the scents and the satiny pages, a sense of magic that punctured through the mundane.
Before Fragrantica and TikTok reviews, we turned to physical media to determine how something smelled. Yet scent is nothing if not a highly evasive concept. (And Luca Turin remains the best at putting scent into words.) It is deeply personal and rarely easy to explain. As a result, we often turn to narrative abstraction. This is evident in the way perfume has historically been advertised, whether through visual mediums or the language of advertisements. Successfully communicating what something smells like rarely occurs by a mere list of notes or ingredients—rather, a certain degree of storytelling is required. A floral field. A horse. A thrilling ride on the back of a motorcycle. Viewers must read between the lines to draw their own conclusions.
Serviette, too, finds beauty within the interpretative gaps accompanying the language of fragrance. However, unlike many, we inject those rare pieces of culture that are rough around the edges, begging you, dear reader, to dig deeper into the more-ness of exploration. The magic of Sour Diesel, for instance, cannot be adequately conveyed through the words “rhubarb,” “geranium,” and “cannabis” alone. Instead, Serviette employs layers of images and experiences: it’s a fragrance for delightfully charming dissidents; it’s Helmut Lang’s 1998 Spring collection; and Helmut Berger’s portrayal of Dorian Gray in the 1970 film adaptation of the same name.
Whether you’re searching for the perfect book, a magazine, or the perfect fragrance, Serviette remains ever confident that your efforts to dig deeper will always be rewarded. We thank you for taking the time to read.