Picture by Marcel Theodore Anthony Bosch
AUTOR team went again to Athens Jewelry Week. We do that from the very first edition back in 2016, and this time we met many amazing artists and let ourself fascinated by their jewelry stories.
One of the new artists we discover is Svetlana Prigoditch. She is creating jewelry, but also fragrances, making a two in one situation in her case. You can use them both, because in every of her jewelry you can have a little drop of fragrance, but also separately. The fusion of jewelry and fragrance creates a delicate context where parfume lovers can play and enjoy the mix. We talk with her right after AJW about jewelry, perfumes, movies and beauty.
AUTOR: When did you find the connection between jewelry and perfumes, how did it all started for you?
Svetlana Prigoditch: My passion for contemporary jewelry started about four years ago, after a long period of exploring and getting lost in different mediums as video performance, drawing, sculpture, and installation art. At one point I’d realize that jewelry has a quality to connect all of them! It was a relief.
The combination of art and craft, and the fact that the body can be seen, in a way, as an art gallery by wearing peace, made my decision complete.
The passion for the perfume started when I was a little girl, remembering the smell of Opium by Yves Saint Laurent on my mother. At that moment I could perceive the perfume changing the appearance of the person and becoming an invisible and powerful tool for communication with the surrounding. One of my teenager’s dreams was to become a seller in the perfume shop.
After years of smelling, sniffing, collecting perfumes I ended up composing fragrances myself.
A: If beauty had her fragrance, what flavors/ ingredients would it have?
SP: My perception of beauty in fragrance is about desire and secrecy. In the opening of the composition, I could imagine a romantic narcissus, seductive creamy tuberose, and mystical blue lotus, then following up with aromatic black currant leaves and a couple of figs. In the base and for the dry-down I would put some deep and intense ingredients as labdanum, frankincense, amber, wine, vanilla bourbon and a bit of powdery leather accord. I love the smell of leather, it gives the perfume an aristocratic and elegant touch.
A: Your new collection is brooches with images from the movies, what relation do you have with movies?
SP: The movies I have chosen for the brooches are particular from the 40th till the 80th of the 20th century. The cinematographic works from the directors as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Andrei Tarkovsky have that significant and comfortable velocity. It makes me dream away and being totally absorbed by the movie. They are very powerful in creating a nostalgic atmosphere.
A: Where did the spark for this collection come from?
SP: The smell is connected to our past experiences, were preserved in our memory. When we identify an odor, it always comes with an image from the unconscious. Like a film clip from our personal movie. My decision of adding fragrance to the jewelry came very naturally. It’s about making the image’s I use in my work alive. I see a fragrance as a piece of invisible jewelry, it combines in a very interesting and often surprising way with the wearable pieces. The collection CinemAromatique Classic is a still growing project. Finally, I’m hoping to create a ‘cinematographic olfactory’ library with brooches and fragrances.
