Vagabond Polaroids: ‘Scent Stories Vol I’ by MiN New York

MiN New York Apothecary & Atelier is a scent repository and haven for bruised and bothered senses at 117 Crosby Street in New York owned and orchestrated by Founder and CEO Chad Murawczyk and Vice President and Curator Mindy Yang in 1999.

The place itself is a meld of Euro sensibility; American boho beat style and gentleman’s smoking den, stocked with a curated collection of scent, skincare and shaving lines from around the world. The emphasis at MiN has always been on personal experience, presenting items from fine fabrics, leather, glass, the inhale of rare niche scents and the smoky fumes of exquisite chandlery to fit the client, making it feel right for them.

Chad & Mindy - Airport Study in Black

(taken from MiN New York Intstagram)

tweaked & titled by TSF

Chad and Mindy are darkly beautiful, predominantly garbed in shades of noir and strategic in their use of social media. Mindy in particular is a perceptive and elegant tweeter, highlighting trends, causes and magpie philosophies. It’s a damn chic brand, just on the cusp of being painfully so, but pulled back by a genuine passion and obsession with scent and quality and providing a consistently unique environs where their clients can inhale and experience extraordinary olfaction, chandlery, skincare and grooming.

ExquisiteWaterGarden#5 – ‘Le Jardin De Monsieur Li’ by Hermès

You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain;
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men.

Li Bai (705-762)

Mediterranean swoon, Nile reverie, monsoon rain, rooftop sanctuary and contemplative pools. These five riffs on aquatic jardinière obsession are arguably the masterworks of Jean-Claude Ellena, elicited during his genre-defining tenure at Hermès. His relentless pursuit of olfactive meaning in water, reflection, light, calm, verdancy and stillness has created a quintet of odiferous canvases that continue to seduce and dazzle.

According to the scented grapevine, Jean-Claude’s time as Hermès seems to be softly drawing to an enigmatic close with Christine Nagel waiting patiently in the minimal wings. Yet he shows no signs of taking his fingers off the mouillettes just yet. He has not made any concrete statement about retirement; much of the chatter about his departure is a fiction of the press and perfume blogs. I sense a certain wistfulness and longing in his work, but this is not enough to prove pending departure.