Her scent fills the Museum of Sex
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, November 5, 2024


Her scent fills the Museum of Sex
Marissa Zappas’s perfumes inside “The Pink Bedroom” exhibit at the Museum of Sex, in New York on March 1, 2023. Zappas’s perfumes are produced in limited quantities and start at about $150 a bottle. (Justin J Wee/ The New York Times)

by Trey Taylor



NEW YORK, NY.- A whiff of strawberry sweetness hits you as soon as you walk into “The Pink Bedroom,” an exhibit at the Museum of Sex here. The installation is a jumble of shocking pink objects (stuffed animals, makeup compacts, music boxes, shoes and sex toys) arranged around a bed made with pink sheets and pillows. But it also features a mishmash of smells: rose, baby powder and … is that cat pee?

Artist Portia Munson has exhibited different versions of “The Pink Bedroom,” a diorama that explores girlhood and femininity, since 1994. Her show at the Museum of Sex, which runs through July, is the first time the installation has had a signature scent.

It was created by Marissa Zappas, 36, a perfumer in Brooklyn. Zappas, who has a namesake line, has developed a reputation for creating fragrances with atypical collaborators such as sex workers, poets and astrologers, most of whom are women.

“The Pink Bedroom” perfume — small bottles of which cost $45 — has, in a way, been years in the making: Zappas first approached Munson, 62, about working on a project together in 2018. Zappas loosely modeled the scent after the smell of Cupcake Dolls, a type of fragrant toy popular in the 1990s.

A theme of “The Pink Bedroom” exhibition is the loss of innocence, and Zappas wanted the perfume to reflect that. To balance the sweetness evoked by its floral and fruity notes, Zappas added cassis bud, which has an acrid smell that she said is often mistaken for that of cat pee.

“There are these classic pink ‘girlie’ smells, but then there is also something that feels unsettling, uncomfortable,” Zappas said recently while standing inside “The Pink Bedroom” installation, into which her perfume is pumped through a diffuser.

Munson said Zappas understood that “‘The Pink Bedroom’ is meant to be very seductive and beautiful, but also a little bit too much and a little yucky.”

Jane Dashley, who reviews perfumes for Fragraphilia, a fragrance website that she helped found, said Zappas specializes in scents that are “uniquely feminine, like a fairy tale, ballerina, bows-and-ribbons kind of feminine.” But, Dashley said, there is a darkness under the surface.

Latex and Leather

In 2019, Zappas created a fragrance inspired by “Porn Carnival: Paradise Edition,” a book of love poems by Rachel Rabbit White. After reading the book, Zappas contacted White, and the two developed Paradise Edition, a scent with notes of jasmine, orange blossom and saltwater.

In 2021, Zappas released “Wh*re,” a perfume inspired by “Whore of New York,” a memoir by Liara Roux about her sex work. Roux said the fragrance, which smells of cherry, rose and leather, evoked “the nasty, visceral fleshiness and the surreal glamour” of her book.

“I asked her to make a scent that captured the feeling of just having worked — something that smelled like money, condoms and sex,” said Roux.

Zappas said that although perfume had a history of being used as a tool of seduction, “sexy” could mean different things — or smells — to different people. She is less interested in defining what sex smells like than she is in exploring the ways and reasons people wear perfume. “Sex is a major one,” she added.

A fragrance called Annabel’s Birthday Cake, with notes of whipped cream and latex, is her most popular, Zappas said. She created it with her friend Annabel Gat, an astrologer who was born one day after Zappas.




Zappas runs her business from her apartment in Brooklyn, where part of her living room has become a perfume lab. Small bottles and vials of aroma chemicals cover the desk where she works, and just a few feet away is a stripper pole, which Zappas installed after a breakup. “Dancing really helps take me back into my body and not think so much,” she said.

While discussing what led her to become a perfumer, Zappas plunked a framed photo of actress Elizabeth Taylor onto a coffee table. The picture was from a collection that she said at one point totaled about 1,200 photos of the actress, whose eyes were the inspiration for a pair of tattoos that Zappas has on her inner arms.

Zappas became fascinated with Taylor as a child, after seeing “National Velvet.” When she later learned of Taylor’s foray into the fragrance business, Zappas said it intensified her interest in perfume.

Zappas, who was born in Southern California and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, said she had been obsessed with scents since childhood, when she would spend time at a fig orchard planted by her father.

She moved to New York City in 2011, to study at The New School. In early 2015, she started a temp job as a receptionist at the New York office of Givaudan, a fragrance company that has developed perfumes for Coach, Estée Lauder and Tom Ford, among others.

During that job, Zappas applied for an apprenticeship with one of Givaudan’s master perfumers, Olivier Gillotin. At the time she applied for the apprenticeship, Zappas was studying cemetery construction. “I was learning about the history of deodorization,” she said.

Gillotin said her studies were much different from those of anyone else he had met working in the industry. She began her apprenticeship with him around the time of her graduation in 2015. When it ended, he advised her to strike out on her own, telling her then that she could make more of a mark on the industry from the outside than the inside.

Feeling Alive

Most of Zappas’ perfumes are produced in limited quantities and start at about $150 a bottle. She also takes commissions for custom fragrances, a service that starts at about $4,000 a bottle (refills cost about $200).

To develop a custom perfume, Zappas probes clients’ memories for scent associations. “This is my favorite part, learning about their specific memories from childhood, like what foods their mother made, or what their backyard smells like,” she said.

Sera Gamble, a creator of the Netflix series “You,” commissioned a perfume in July after discovering Zappas’ products on Instagram. “I was so taken with the idea that she collaborates with poets and astrologers,” said Gamble, 39.

The fragrance is still in development. “Perfume is ideally slow,” Zappas said.

She is working on “Maggie the Cat is Alive, I’m Alive!,” a perfume with notes of violets, peaches and Champagne. The name is from dialogue by Taylor in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

“I’m finally feeling more settled, with enough confidence to make a fragrance worthy of her,” Zappas said.

She added: “Quite honestly, I just feel alive.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

April 22, 2023

Paul Georges: Abstracting the Figurative on view at Simon Lee Gallery

Norton Museum to acquire John Singer Sargent portrait of Amelia Earhart benefactor

Her scent fills the Museum of Sex

Alexander Shelly named Artistic and Music Director of Artis

Loren Cameron, 63, dies; His camera brought transgender men to light

Female designers star at Bonhams London sale

The Coronation Sale celebrates over eight centuries of royal history at Sotheby's

Hindman New York appoints Aaron Cator Senior Specialist, Post War & Contemporary Art

Intriguing Surrealist work tops Bonhams Impressionist sale in London

Jessica Burstein, whose camera captured New York, dies at 76

Spring success for Bonhams Hot Off the Press Prints sale in London

Hollywood's Golden Age takes center stage at Cowan's this May

Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith, shaped by the land

Review: In 'The Thanksgiving Play,' who gets to tell the story?

A dancer's life: Chita Rivera on working hard and learning from the best

A new era for Bonhams Scotland

Helen Barolini, chronicler of Italian American women, dies at 97

Asian Arts' diversity showcased at Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr from 9 to 16 June

Survey of contemporary artist presents powerful interpretation of Crow history

Ackland Art Museum's new exhibition, 'Unsettled Things: Art from an African American South', opens in Chapel Hill

EstateOfMind's May 6th auction to feature collection of railroadiana, clocks and lighting

Igshaan Adams now being represented by Thomas Dane Gallery

The automatic soap dispenser, an unusual and practical accessory

7 Natural Ways to Prevent Aging Signs on the Face

What Is the Difference between a Feminized Seed?

Jackets for Every Season: Lightweight, Mid-Weight, and Heavyweight Options




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful