Artist, Quentin Jones, was commissioned by Penhaligon’s to create a stop-motion animation exploring the story behind the new gentlemen’s fragrance Sartorial. Filmed at the
Norton & Sons
shop on Savile Row, the animation features the fragrance’s creator Bertrand Duchaufour. Patrick Grant, the owner of Norton & Sons, also makes a cameo appearance.
The opening scenes depict perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour at Norton & Sons, absorbing the scents and smells of the workrooms. Bertrand is seen smelling the fragrant scents exuded from the rolls of fabric, machinery and paper patterns before he is able to embark on the creative journey to craft a contemporary fragrance or cologne inspired by the scents and smells of the famous Savile Row workrooms.
Quentin’s creative animation skilfully collects a variety of images in each scene to form the bigger picture. A clock as an eye, newspaper cuttings for a nose and hands as ears are used to depict a distinguished gentleman with a sizable moustache. Reflecting Penhaligon’s eccentric British style and heritage Quentin features an iconic red routemaster bus, snooker ball and car to emerge from the gentlemen’s nostrils to travel down the moustache and out of the picture.
The final sequence depicts gentlemen’s heads forming the stoppers in a line up of Sartorial fragrance bottles, the centre fragrance bottle featuring Norton & Sons owner, Patrick Grant. The classic Penhaligon’s ribbon on the stopper of the centre fragrance bottle expands to push the four other fragrance bottles of out the scene. One bottle remains and the word “Sartorial” is stitched into the frame, line by line, to reveal the name of the latest men’s fragrance from Penhaligon’s.
This animated video represents the creativity of Bertrand Duchaufour in taking traditional notes of oakmoss, tonka bean and lavender and exquisitely stitched them together with woods, ozonic and metallic effects, leather, violet leaf, honey and spices to create the perfect illusion of a tailor’s workroom. The modern thread running through Sartorial is beeswax; echoing the blocks of wax each thread is run across before stitching. This sweet smudged note ties together the more traditional elements; the oiled flash of shears cutting cloth, the rub of fabric beneath fingers, tobacco tinted cabinetry, puffs of chalk in the air and old paper patterns vanilla with age.
Quentin Jones is an illustrator, animator and Central St. Martins MA graduate. Her clients include E. Tautz, AnOther Magazine and Aubin & Wills.
