L&rsquo;Officiel Philippines speaks to Barnab&eacute; Fillion, the nose behind Aesop&rsquo;s new fragrance collection.

<h5>Othertopias, a collection of three new unorthodox fragrances by Aesop, is about interstitial spaces as much as it is borne of it. The idea behind these new fragrances for vegan and cruelty-free skincare label Aesop was put together by Fillion as he was on the move himself, immersed in a philosophical audiobook about the same subject: &ldquo;It's basically about the study of the interstitial space, the ethereal topology, the study of the other space. And I was traveling with it, so I was always listening in planes, in the car driving, but it helped me look at the world very, very differently.&rdquo;</h5>

<h5>Fillion, who is also a photographer and synesthete with a background in botany and phytology, first collaborated with Aesop when he reconstructed the house blend Marrakech into Marrakech Intense in 2015. Since then, every scent or collection he&rsquo;s conceptualized has become a new chapter within the narrative Fillion and Aesop have built together. Othertopias thus becomes part of this story, simultaneously creating and bringing us into worlds both real and imagined.</h5>

<h5>Titled Miraceti, Er&eacute;mia, and Karst, the nature-driven aromas are bottled interpretations of worlds within worlds. In a conversation with Fillion, L&rsquo;Officiel Philippines discovers the three elements you should look out for in Othertopias. </h5>

The Memory of Ambergris&nbsp;
<h5>Miraceti or &ldquo;The Boat,&rdquo; is about &ldquo;man who doesn't want to let go of his will, chasing this obscure object of desire,&rdquo; Fillion shares. &ldquo;We imagined the Captain [looking for] Moby-Dick on a boat in a very dark sea.&rdquo; Fillion and Aesop work around the myth of the whale in layers: a whiff of Miraceti will give you a bit of musk&mdash;the fragrant element originally and infamously obtained from ambergris. <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-ambergris.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ambergris</a> is a waxy secretion from sperm whales&rsquo; bile ducts formerly a precious and extremely expensive substance, now illegal to use and trade. You won&rsquo;t find any whale bile in Miraceti, though, as Aesop is vegan and is firm on the exclusion of animal byproduct. Instead, Fillion explored different odors and elements to restructure the complex aroma. &ldquo;I went through the first documents when they found the first grey amber, this piece of fossil that travels the sea that is so loaded with different smells and elements, and it's the most exhaustive list of olfactory descriptions that I've seen,&rdquo; Fillion shares a part of his R&amp;D process in recreating grey amber or ambergris. &ldquo;And that was my inspiration for the ingredients. There is seaweed, there is coffee, there is a musk, there is something animal with tobacco, all of those things I have used [in the perfume] to reconstitute the idea of ambergris so it was quite a nice exercise for me.&rdquo;</h5>

The Force of Nature&nbsp;
<h5>Meanwhile, Er&eacute;mia aims to transport you to a hazy and vibrant version of the earth where nature takes over and takes back what humans have claimed. Fillion shares that a lot of the inspiration for the green aromatic fragrance was about overgrown gardens, urban gardens, and anywhere where life springs uninterrupted. &ldquo;...in Paris, there is one garden called St. Vincent, in [the place] Montmartre,&rdquo; Fillion recalls. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a garden that we don't touch, we just care for it to make sure that the species don't die. It&rsquo;s a garden of observation,&rdquo; he says. Jardin Sauvage Saint Vincent used to be an abandoned plot of land with an overgrowth of local flora&mdash;&ldquo;wasteland plants,&rdquo; as Fillion refers to them&mdash;with an ecosystem so fragile and wild that people are permitted to walk through at rare occasions only to observe and not to interrupt or touch.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s about the very slow, but still visible movement of growth in nature that you can never stop.&rdquo; Fillion says. And in its own unhurried and deliberate way, this pace and takeover of nature as humans stand still to watch is a liminal space in itself.&nbsp;</h5>

Pure Air&nbsp;
<h5>Karst or &ldquo;The Shore,&rdquo; is a warm scent that attempts to rein in visions of the seashore moments away from a storm with its mineral and woody elements. In this storm, the shore washes away into the ocean and vice versa&mdash; &ldquo;It's about this idea of erosion,&rdquo; according to Fillion. &ldquo;Every year there are thousands of kilometers that disappear off the territory of the shore. In this phenomenon of erosion, we may find fossils and seeds and things that actually inform us of our past and give us information about the past. So it's interesting because it's the phenomenon of disappearing.&rdquo; To harness this idea of coming and going, Fillion works around the idea of something else in a storm that&rsquo;s just as powerful: pure air. How does one harness this? &ldquo;I thought about the idea of emptiness, the idea of the void, I thought about something that is actually there and not there. So I thought about different temperatures, the idea of the wind, very subtle,&rdquo; says Fillion. To make this tangible&mdash;or olfactible, specifically, he shares what notes went into Karst: &ldquo;I worked on different very fresh aromatic notes that, in the rhythm of the fragrance, give the impression of a certain air that is passing. And then I worked with different musks to give that texture which is a little bit floating.&rdquo; </h5>

<h5>Othertopias is now available at Aesop, Greenbelt 5. P9300/50ml. </h5>

Othertopias: A Study on Liminal Spaces

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