If you’re looking for a flash of fragrant brightness amidst these greyest days, Floral Street Sunflower Pop is your go-to burst of olfactory optimism!
Having already proved that exceptional quality fragrance needn’t cost the earth, Floral Street’s fashion-forward and so-affordable approach combined with impeccable sustainability and cruelty-free ethos, are now set on proving, as founder Michelle Feeney puts it: ‘fine art can meet fine fragrance.’
Celebrating their 4th year of scented success, with their perfumes now available to purchase in shops based in 20 countries around the world; this British indie house was thrilled to be approached to produce a fragrance based on the most famous painting in the entire world. Says Michelle: ‘When the Van Gough Museum people walked into the Floral Street shop and asked us to create some products based on the Van Gough paintings, it was a dream come true – they said we could choose any painting we wanted for inspiration! Of course… it had to be Sunflowers.’
Seeing the painting in person really blew Michelle Feeney away, and she explains that ‘When I stood in front of the painting, I could really feel the brushstrokes, I could feel the movement.’ It was this vibrant energy Michelle wanted in-house perfumer Jerome Epinette to somehow bottle (indeed, the painting appears suspended in the bottle itself) and for Jerome, that meant capturing the feeling of the painting. ‘I love the different colours, contrasts of textures, and that’s what really inspired my creation to try and evoke those,’ Michelle chimes in, her face glowing with the passion she so obviously feels for the subject:
‘It’s also about the passing of the day,’ Michelle gestures toward an image of the iconic work; ‘…if you notice in the painting, it’s not just about bright yellow fresh and shiny flowers, they are captured in lots of stages as they change colour, which I love.’
‘We also discovered that Van Gough used to live in London,’ Michelle continues, ‘and spent a lot of time walking in Covent Garden, so that was quite spooky in a way – to think he probably walked past the place where our shop is, now!’
The very definition of optimism, Floral Street’s Sunflower Pop (from £24 for 10ml Eau de parfum) is both sunny to look at and sunny inside – vibrantly fizzing with fresh mandarin, Calabrian bergamot, and accords of vegan honey and Bellini cocktails. It settles to a smooth, nuanced warmth, a scented sunset that feels timeless. Oh yes, we’ll raise a glass to a happy scent that allows us to dream of sunshine with every single spritz. In a letter to his brother, Vincent Van Gough once wrote: ‘If one truly loves nature, one finds beauty everywhere.’ And what a beauty this is!
