Deliciously Unfiltered With the Founders of Flâner

Who doesn’t love spilling the tea? We were thrilled to sit down with Andrew and Mary, the visionary duo behind Flâner, a fragrance house inspired by urban landscapes. Rooted in Melbourne’s vibrant streets and born from a shared love of scent’s transformative power, Flâner weaves the stories of cities into every bottle. From uncovering the aromatic pulse of a speakeasy in Manhattan to capturing the grit of Melbourne’s tram tracks, Andrew and Mary take us on a journey through their world of “urban perfumery.”

Andrew and Mary, tell us a little about how Flâner came to be.

We both always loved and understood the beauty of fragrance, but from completely different perspectives.

Working in media I (Andrew) saw the influence scent had on brand experiences, while Mary as an intensive care nurse knew the immense comfort scent provided to people and families in hospital and care.

We live in Collingwood and regularly stroll through the city streets, exploring laneways and hidden corners. When traveling, we do the same, always gravitating to urban landscapes where we can get lost and discover unique experiences. Scent above all else is transportive. It can take you to another place and is why we always “bottled” our travels with a local perfume. Fragrance and travel are intrinsically linked. We thought it could be interesting to take the aromatic pulse of cities, but in a different and more unique way.

Flâner’s fragrances are inspired by the urban landscape. What are some of your favorite city scents?

We define ourselves as “urban perfumers”. We focus on uncovering the fleeting and transient moments of beauty that define urban life and translate them aromatically to transport people. Each fragrance we create captures something unique about that city or urban experience in a way that is unique to it – compared to the rest of the world.

Rather than focusing on the New York Highline for example, our take on the concrete jungle (Manhattan Cherry) was to capture the aromatic essence of a drunken cherry at the bottom of a Manhattan cocktail – consumed in a dimly lit speakeasy bar of course.

Fragrance really is a combination of scientific formulation and artistic creation. We believe the story is equally important as the perfume itself. We want people to connect with both. Bringing to life a transportive sensorial experience aromatically is what we really focus on and what makes our perfumes so unique and special.

Andrew: My favourite city scent is our Sonic Silver. It captures Melbourne and is inspired by the tram tracks connecting its city streets. It’s gritty, raw and imperfect in a way that only true locals understand.

Mary: The love and passion of Paris is captured in Amber Narcotique. It’s intoxicating and addictive. The unique blend of several amber notes, spices and innovative fragrance extractions means that just like the city, it has a scent trail that people can’t help but comment on and be pulled towards. It’s my signature scent choice now.

Most of us aren’t scent experts, but we know what we like. For beginners, what’s the difference between top, middle and base notes?

Perfume is a composition of different ingredients or accords to create a unique scent experience. These fragrance notes have different molecular weights, which determine how long or fleetingly a person experiences them.

Top notes are the most light and volatile, traditionally only lasting about 15 minutes. You’ll often see a lot of citrus top notes, light florals or herbaceous/green notes like lavender and sage. While short in life, top notes are important in creating a first impression and introducing the middle and base notes in an enjoyable way. It’s like the aperitif before a meal or entrée before a main course.

Middle notes are also known as the “heart notes”, these form the core experience of any fragrance. They last for up to an hour and are an absolute joy to explore as the lighter top notes evaporate. There is a broader ingredient pallet to play with in middle notes, which means this is often where a lot of creativity and artistry comes. Heavier florals, spices and some lighter woods take stage here.

Base notes add depth, are the heaviest, and last the longest. They are the lingering scent you have after the middle notes burn off and last up to 8 hours. These are typically woods, ambers and musk’s but also include notes like vanilla, leather, tobacco, vetiver and patchouli.

Top notes are often what people associate with perfume. But they burn off so quickly and your remaining 6 hour fragrance experience is actually something completely different. The beauty in perfumery is in experiencing each layer and uncovering new notes as they bloom.

Spill the Tea is “a cheeky tribute to deliciously unfiltered moments.” When do you feel your most unfiltered?

We feel most unfiltered during golden hour at a rooftop bar on a sunny day. We’ll be on our second cocktail, Gimlet and a Bijou. Looking over Melbourne’s cityscape the sun will start to go down and the enjoyment of the day is replaced with the excitement and energy of what the night holds.

Being with friends – or making new ones – and not knowing the stories you’re going to create just invites an environment to be unfiltered, in all the right ways.

How did The StandardX inspire Spill the Tea? What was your first impression of us?

The StandardX is for wanderers, independent thinkers that want to experience local neighbourhoods. Not from a guidebook, but from pounding the pavement themselves.

When you’re travelling, it’s off the beaten track, where you have no idea where you are or what you will be doing, that the best memories are made. Often, they are sprinkled with a little cheekiness, just like The StandardX.

Sharing these stories at the end of a day after experiencing a new city, while you settle into the evening, captures the fun of a great hotel experience. It really is when you ‘Spill The Tea’.

The tongue-in-cheek name felt like it perfectly captured what The StandardX is about – exploration, creativity and a dash of mischief.

Pretend your best friend is visiting Fitzroy but only has 24 hours here. What are the top things you’d send them to see, taste, do?

Drink. Walk. Shop. Eat. Repeat.

Get a coffee at Jasper’s, Alimentari or Morning Market. Pick up a takeaway croissant from Lune – you must if you’re here. Go for a walk in Carlton Gardens, enjoy strolling with no purpose at all. Do some shopping along Brunswick St, Gertrude St and Smith St – buy everything you don’t need but love. Take a break, get a sandwich at Stefanino Panino and eat it outside in the Collingwood Yards. Near the end of the day, head to an iconic Fitzroy pub like The Builders Arms or Marquis of Lorne. Or, a cocktail at Above Board or The Everleigh. Hard not to finish at Naked For Satan on the rooftop. If it’s too busy, curl up at a ramen bar.

Your fragrances are vegan friendly, cruelty free and non-gendered. Tell us about what that mission means to you personally. 

Perfume was always a gender-neutral craft. People simply chose fragrances based on their preferences. Often notes considered “masculine” in current society were worn more by women in history. Similarly, men were often adorned with florals since these had such a strong projection.

Unfortunately, gender as a construct for fragrance creation/selection was introduced by the perfume industry in the late 19th century.

We want to take perfumery back to the craft and artform it really is, away from anything other than the enjoyment of scent. Scent is such a unique experience for everyone. Perfume has the beautiful transformative ability to completely change how you feel and who you are or want to be for an occasion. It makes you feel, that is the beauty in its art and what we want to focus on.

Being vegan friendly and cruelty free reflects our consistent focus on being more ethical where we can in a relevant way. This is most true in our perfume development and ingredient selection process. Ingredient selection is incredibly important to us, we focus on sourcing the highest quality in the most ethical way. We aim to work with smaller and more local ingredient suppliers where we know how the ingredients are extracted and converted into the oils we use.

A lavender oil for example could have 70 different varieties, depending on where it comes from, the climate it grows in and how it is harvested. We ensure our key suppliers and partners are those we know are producing in the most ethical way they can.

Are there any notes you’d like to make a comeback in 2025? Any you’d like to leave behind in 2024?

The beauty of fragrance notes is they can change so much with the addition of others or a change in percentage. We can always create new experiences even with well covered notes like vanilla over the last couple of years. We can’t leave any note behind because each can have a purpose in any creation.

For 2025 though, savoury, green and fresh fragrances seem to be the “trend”. More unique gourmands will continue to be popular.

However, there is a rich history in perfume – like any form of art. There are so many wonderful fragrances and notes that people aren’t aware of today globally, or in certain regions. We’d love to see more people experience these, in a modern way of course. They may be challenging at first, but they are so beautiful as people expand their fragrance horizons. Scent is the least understood sense we have – we are relatively “nose blind” when it comes to having a clear grasp on what different scents are! We are working on a few fragrances that will launch this year that we can’t wait to introduce. Watch this space.

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