Friday 22 August 2014

WOMEN'S MONTH PORTRAIT # 3: Diana Rankin - Fascinated by Fragrance


BY ERIKA


If there is one thing Diana Rankin, perfumista en Somerset West business owner, seems to understand intuitively, it is arte-vita or how to imbue life with art.

Early in the previous century, an Italian art and social movement called the Futurists 1) had appropriated this phrase, art-life, for the sensory revolution they envisioned. They wanted to empower and liberate society by infusing art into everyday life and into everyday practices. The leader Marinetti, believed that we think, dream and act according to what we eat and drink. Food should engage every sense and stir the imagination.2)

THE ART OF FRAGRANCE

For the Futurists it was food and for the owner of Perfume Power South Africa, it all starts with the art of fragrance.

Diana has had a lifelong fascination with everything to do with perfume and as so often happens, the desire to share her passion and knowledge, grew into a business. 

In 2011 she launched her company to educate, entertain and make uncommon fragrances from all over the world available to men and women.

The vehicles she uses are Perfume Power SA's  e-commerce website, presentations at workshops and at private and corporate functions as well as exhibiting at network events (Diana is the chapter leader of the Somerset West chapter of Xtraordinary Women), conferences, expos and wellness days.

One of the very special services is the three-hour personalised Signature Scent Session where you are guided to blend your own masterpiece.

SCENT ROOM

But it is the recent launching of The Scentroom in a quiet cul-de-sac in Somerset West that reminded me of the Futurists’ ideas of arte-vita and their notion of sensory elaboration and combination to create a feast of sensory awareness.

As with the Futurists who made olfaction the ‘star of the gastronomic experience’ 3), every sensation in The Scentroom brings your focus back to fragrance

The sound of running water in the beautiful garden, the tactility of fabric and bead work, the colours chosen for the walls, the reflections of candle light from the exquisite perfume bottles displayed on glass shelves, the feeling of body and soul relaxing in the easy chairs, the touch of perfumed oil or wax on the skin. It all has one objective only and that is to enhance your smelling experience and by implication your emotional experience. 

The relationship between smelling and memory is a very special one.4)  

While it is impossible to recall a smell without the source of it present 5), smells, more than any other sense, triggers memories of situations, contexts and people.

And the memories evoked at The Scentroom have to be special.

“Rather than a sleek and shiny sales room, I wanted to create an airy, peaceful and comfortable environment where people can have an emotional experience but also receive accurate product information so that they will find their perfect perfume match! “ says Diana.

So if you are looking to buy something special for yourself or a friend, if you can get together up to 10 friends to join you for a Signature Scent Workshop, or even if you just being in the moment in a beautiful space, give Diana a call and make an appointment for a scentationalist encounter at The Scent Room.

NOTES
3.    Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
4.    Ibid
5.    Ibid The paradoxical objectivity of smell is that it is more intruding, more immediate, than any other sensation, and at the same time essentially fleeting and elusive. Its presence is never permanent. Not even when that which emits it is present in its materiality is it possible to remain attentive to the smell…. Smell does not permit the continuous examination and enrichment of the first impression which we take for granted, when it comes to the other senses…. The nose must continue to act incessantly, without being able to store the impression. The impression does not become more dense, it is not solidified as when we concentrate on a tone or a color. It is always evaporating.' Ruin, Hans (198?) Smell--Notes for a Phenomenology of Olfaction, Kris:138-41

  1. WOMEN'S MONTH 2014 PORTRAIT # 1: Faith Solomon Helps People Have Better Stories
  2. WOMEN'S MONTH 2014 PORTRAIT # 2: Merissa Slingerland's Art From The Heart

See also: 

  1. PERFUME POWER TO THE PEOPLE - Land n Sand Digital Magazine Nov/Dec 2013 issue

No comments: