The legendary Christopher Chong is in the Perfume Room today! Serving as Amouage’s Creative Director for over a decade (a role he assumed sans any prior fragrance knowledge or experience!), Christopher shocked/saddened the perfume world when he took a multi-year-long hiatus. Alas, we can finally rejoice; Christopher is back in the fragrance world, and this time, he's with the London-based perfume brand, Thameen, where he is the Artist in Residence.  What can we expect in this new era of Christopher? Find out in today's episode ;)



FRAGS MENTIONED:

Amouage: Sunshine Woman, Jubilation 25, Jubilation XXV, Lyric, Epic Man, Epic Woman, Interlude Man; Thameen: Insignia, The Rose; Amouage Honour Woman, Thameen Fanfare, Chanel No. 5



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FOLLOW CHRISTOPHER: @cchonguk @thameenfragrance

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My scent of the day today is the newest creation from Tameen, which you

I am wearing Fanfare, and it was gifted to me after I recorded this episode.

And let me just say, it is a perfect spring fragrance immediately in the rotation.

So this fragrance opens with this big lemon burst.

You get that zestiness from the rind and that juicy pulpiness of the interior and somehow it captures that exact lemon smell in its entirety without ever venturing into astringent or puckery territory.

And I think that the perfumer behind this scent, Bruno Jovanovic, achieves this by surrounding the lemon with a soft and warm, but still buzzy floral heart, which is composed largely of neroli.

Now in that sense, it does sort of feel like a nod to or acknowledgement of that sort of traditional eau de cologne smell.

Instead, rather, it's like slightly candied, almost like a lemon pez, but dialed up.

It's like if you dipped a lemon pez in lemon pulp, balanced with a sort of green vegetal warmth that I clock as some sort of mate or maybe roasted green tea note, that sort of toasted, earthy, slightly pissy, hay kind of smell that you know I love.

That could also be from the patchouli, which by the way gives the entire fragrance that buzzy, zingy, mossy feel.

TLDR, it is a mildly sweet but very much skanky lemon, and I have worn it every day since I was gifted it.

Now, I believe it goes on sale on Twisted Lily on April 1st, And if you want to sample it, which I definitely recommend you do, you can get 10% off your purchase or anything else that you order from twistedlily.com by using my code perfume room 10 at checkout.

Let's scratch each other's proverbial backs.

Now on a side note, if you are trying to make this part of a bigger Twisted Lily order, I will link my Twisted Lily favorites below so that you can have yourselves a little fragrance sampling party.

And of course, this is a perfect segue to our esteemed guest today, Christopher Chong, the genius behind this scent.

If you're familiar with Christopher's legacy and work, you know how special it is to have him on the podcast.

And if you aren't familiar, it might be because you're not aware that he's been the brains and vision behind so many of your favorite fragrances.

So if you wear basically any Amouage fragrance, specifically anything created between the years of

to 2019, yes, a 12 year span, guess what?

You are enjoying a Christopher Chung creation.

For over a decade, Christopher served as a Moage's creative director where he was responsible not only for the entire creative direction of the brand from juice to packaging to marketing, et cetera, but is also the reason why we even have such strong global awareness of the brand.

And after 12 years of what Christopher describes in this episode as feeling like he was stuck in a never-ending hamster wheel, he took a very Prussian hiatus at the end of 2019.

Because as you all know, that turned into lockdown.

But over 3 years later, Christopher has re-emerged on the other side with a new role at a different fragrance house.

Today, Christopher is Tameen London's Artist in Residency, a title that reflects the evolution of his artistry and experience.

In this episode, Christopher and I chat about how he, a person with 0 prior fragrance experience, landed and succeeded in 1 of the most coveted fragrance positions in the industry.

We discuss themes of subversion, that if you look closely, seep through the cracks of all of his creations.

And with that, we go deeper about what exactly is the Christopher Chung DNA that exists no matter what brands he's creating for.

Plus, Christopher shares a preview of what we can expect from Tamin in the upcoming year.

I don't think Christopher has ever met a stranger and a conversation with him feels like a chat with your funnest friend.

Christopher, welcome to the perfume room.

I'm actually feeling very anxious and excited meeting the legendary Emma.

I am so excited to talk with you and I have been truly reading up and doing so much research on you that it's like seeing you in person, seeing your face.

Well, you know, I was on hiatus for the past 3 years and then Covid hit.

So I was, you know, in a lockdown in the countryside in England.

So I did a lot of research on the voice of the new generation for the digital world.

And I was so fascinated with the way that you approach your target, your victim.

I always start the podcast with the following question, which is, what are you currently wearing?

I only save, if you're asking about perfumes, I only save it for special occasion and also because I work with perfumes, I work with creations, so I need to keep my skin fresh So today I know I'm not working on the next creation.

I'm working on like 4 projects at the moment, but I know I'm here to meet you, Emma.

So I just thought I'll keep my skin fresh for you.

I never usually share this, but because I got so excited to talk to you today, that I'm wearing Sunshine Woman.

It's so miserable, gloomy with snow, maybe a blizzard.

But yeah, thank you for wearing sunshine.

It really is, and I was looking through all my different amouages, and I was like, I don't have your new Tameens, so that's why I'm not wearing those, but we are gonna smell

So I really could only choose from the moises and then I was, I actually sprayed every blotter of everyone, every bottle or sample I have and then I was like, sunshine.

It was a quite daring creation for that time.

I mean daring to use citrus and fresh sparkling notes and then combine it with tobacco to create that contrast.

And at that time I was actually thinking not so much of a sunshine, I was thinking of an eclipse.

I love that it's sort of, if you first smell it, it has this sort of bright, ethereal buoyancy to it, but then it really deepens up and there's so much more to it, which I mean, that sounds like an eclipse.

And at the time, for us, for me, actually, it was very daring at that time to use that color for the bottle, that kind of bright yellow, orangey.

We got lots of feedback from people, customers, saying that, don't do yellow, we don't like yellow, but that was the most photographed bottle in the media world, by magazines around the world.

That was requested year after year for it.

I wonder what the opposition was to yellow.

I just don't want to know when people don't like something.

Because for me, creativity is that you can't expect everyone to like you.

You can't expect everyone to accept what you are doing.

You know, for me, as long as I can be honest to myself as long as I feel this is right The feeling is right, you know There are lots of things that I can't explain but it goes according to a feeling and I just felt that feeling That was right, you know, I felt that it matched the scent, it represented the name, it's cheerful.

You did, I feel very happy when I wear this scent.

And speaking of bottling happiness, I'm curious, we're jumping ahead a little bit.

You got into the fragrance industry without having had any fragrance background, right?

I heard your foray into this industry started with a very serendipitous conversation at an airport.

That you met someone in the royal family of Oman and talked about music, and it ended with you being offered a job as the creative director of Amouage.

I love that magical version of my life that is like a wax witches, Cinderella type of story.

But the reality was it's boring, actually.

Basically, I didn't know anything about the perfume world back then, And it was in a world when we didn't have Google.

So, and the perfume world back then was very secretive.

We didn't even know who the perfumers were.

There was no such a thing as creative director back then.

You know, all the brand owners were perfumers.

So I was a struggling, young, hoping to make it big opera singer.

You know, I spent many years training to be a lyric baritone, And that was my dream.

That was all I wanted to do with my life.

But life is a bitch, you know, it doesn't go according to your way, you know.

And so I spend all that time and energy and devotion to learning the art of being a lyric baritone and learning the repertoire, it just go according to my way, basically, I think I was stubborn.

I was stubborn that I didn't want to sing or study the kind of music or part that they think is suitable for my voice and age at that time.

I wanted to be the nasty daddy and the nasty antihero, you know, but I wasn't ready yet.

So So I was busy auditioning and nothing really happened.

I just making, you know, a few pounds, a few dollars to pay for more lessons and coaching.

And then I saw an ad in a magazine or somewhere, right?

It was a really strange ad saying that it's a perfume company based in Oman and they want to investigate into looking for someone coming from the artistic world, music or any art form to inspire them to write stories for them about for perfume creation.

So I contacted the boss and I told him about my past.

Before music, I spent many years doing a postgraduate PhD, which I have to admit I haven't completed a PhD in comparative literature, and my subject was on the subversive fashion, sexuality, and theories.

Wow, I have so many questions about subversion and your fragrances, so this is all checking out.

I did not know that, so you've stumped me.

Yeah, so I told him about my past, I told him about my music past.

I told him how I see the world on my perception my perspective Probably I was a bit angry because the world didn't go according to my way my plan So he said to me, Are you interested in going to Paris?

No, you're not staying, you're only doing a day trip

Yeah, So he just sent me to the perfume house, the perfume manufacturer, and so I went to see a meeting, I went to attend a meeting and I had no idea, what you don't know, you don't know how to fare.

And there were no promotions, there were no social media, there was no Instagram, there was no email to tell us about these perfumers.

So I just sat there and to tell them about how I want this perfume to smell like.

I didn't even know at that time, they were working on a project for a March the 25th anniversary.

So I just said to them, I don't know anything about perfume.

I don't even know what Jasmine smells like.

Where Do I ever see Jasmine or Patchouli?

So I said, I have no idea, but I am all about expressions, talking about stories.

I'm a storyteller, using the language of music to express how I want the ingredients to be combined together, or to move into the next level, you know, the evolutions.

So I said to them, my favorite piece of music which fits my current feeling was a song to the moon from the opera Rusalka.

And I told them about what the music was about.

I talk about the dynamics and then they all looked at me blankly.

They were looking at me saying that this is truly, truly so refreshing and different.

We are like creating chamber music together.

And then they said to me, this is completely different from the perfume brief that your company sent to us.

And then they asked me, which 1 should we do?

Did you have the job yet or this was all still the interview process?

And so I went back to London and then Amouage at that time had a London office.

So we started working on the packaging, the new logo, and the whole message that we want to give out to the world, what the brand is all about.

And the message and DNA that I wanted to build on was artistry.

Simple word, just focusing on the artistry.

Artistry that best represent taking a mouage, the brand to the world.

So then we present at that time, the perfume Jubilation 25 and Jubilation XXV at this amazing, amazing launch, relaunch party in Muscat.

You know, we flew in editors from all the magazines around the world.

And at that time, we didn't have many perfume influencers.

So we flew in Michael Edwards, Luca Turin.

Those were the daddies of the perfume world back then.

Actually, I just had lunch with Michael Edwards.

And that was the beginning of our marriage.

And then that's when they offered me the contract after 1 year.

I came into the perfume world not knowing a thing but doing the perfume things my way.

That's a powerful sign that something outside the universe is giving me.

And I spent all those years suffering for my voice.

I spent all those years practicing thinking music

and taking rejections from auditions and from competitions.

Do I just pack it in and start a new adventure?

So I discussed it with my singing teacher and my coach and they felt that I just had to go with my heart.

I said to them, let me just play with this.

And I'm going to take what I learned from you guys, the music, and I'm going to apply it to perfumery.

And they thought that would be interesting.

So I took a leave of absence, I told them for 2 years, but that was a long time ago and I never went back.

Well it's interesting, there are a few things in that story that I really want to touch on.

You were talking about how you sort of didn't know what you were up against.

Like when you first were talking to these perfumers, sort of giving them this brief, it was almost not intimidating because you didn't know what the protocol was or who these people were.

Was there a learning curve in terms of how you spoke about fragrance and different notes or learned how to give feedback, or do you feel like your feedback is still sort of through the lens of music?

Not just the perfumers, also the executives in the sales department.

They really love this new style of working.

So after Jubilation and after Lyric and Epic, I became big news.

But I'm about to say to you, because my life was so in a fast pace, like in a hamster wheel at that time, I didn't know about all this.

I only discovered this emotion last year when some of the senior executives in the manufacturers sat me down and told me what the world thought of me at that time.

I was so protected by the Amouage PR machine.

I mean you are, you did for Amouage and you're doing for Tamim, essentially what someone like Frederick Mall does for Frederick Mall or Tom Ford does for Tom Ford, you're just under another company's umbrella.

So I guess with that, what is, you know, you now, I do want to talk about Tamin as well.

What is the Christopher Chong DNA that whatever, whether you are working on an eponymous brand or you're on a image or tell me what who are you and what is that lens that you bring?

I think my mantra is has always been with my life, how I lived my life and how I have to travel, messed up my life and then just went on as there's nothing wrong.

You know, I lived in, I was brought up, I was born in Hong Kong.

I came to America at a young age and then I just left and packed up a suitcase and went to London and pursue a whole different life.

In short, I always live according to my personal mantra.

Is there a fragrance that you've developed or worked on that feels the most you?

And I know so many of them are such deeply personal stories or inspirations, but which fragrance that you've worked on that you're like, this is who I am at my core, if any?

I think they represent a different stage of my life.

They represent a different stage and a state of my mental mind too.

And I had a lot to prove in terms of the artistry.

And for me at that time, I was much younger.

I felt that to be autistic, 1 must be complex and complicated and be difficult.

As you get older, you chill out a bit more.

Now I feel that the best thing that represents who I am is totally completely different from 10 years ago.

Now it's much more of a subtle calmness of complication.

Well, I mean, some of your inspirations are so sort of like cerebral or esoteric, like a lot of them are inspired by different operas or death or...

Subversion of the idea of exoticism and orientalism.

Occidentals are our interpretation of orientalism.

So I'm like, is anything about rainbows and sunshine?

The true meaning of narratives in perfumery.

So 1 thing that I am curious about with Amouage is so many of the releases you worked on, and we're gonna get to Tupmin as well.

I know I keep talking about Amouage, but so many of the releases-

So, so many of the releases were in duos of men's and women's.

And What's so interesting to me is that the Amouage creations seem so gender defiant to me and they seem so non-traditional that seeing like, oh, this is men's, this is women's is a binary that I wouldn't expect.

What is the intention behind the men's versus women's and what makes a fragrance the men's 1 versus the women's 1?

See all Perfume Room transcripts on Applepodcasts

89. Christopher Chong Doesn’t Give a Fu*k! (w/ Thameen’s Artist in Residence Christopher Chong)