People sometimes ask where our fragrances come from. Every one of them comes from a place we have lived in or loved, somewhere that shaped the way we see the world. Fragrance, we have always believed, is one of the most elegant ways to carry a place into a home.
This is the story behind each scent in the Told London collection.
Island Breeze, Seychelles
I was born in the Seychelles. For me, that culture is sunlight and openness, a life shaped by nature and colour and by a certain ease that belongs to the islands alone. Scent there is never separate from the air. It is part of how you understand the day, from the warmth of bougainvillea to the sweetness of passion fruit carried in on the breeze. In Island Breeze, Seychelles, bougainvillea and passion fruit give way to jasmine, gardenia and frangipani, all of it resting on the warmth of sandalwood and vanilla. It is the fragrance I grew up inside.
Night Blooms, India
My grandparents’ home in India gave me another language entirely, one of ceremony and hospitality. Fragrance there marks the moment a guest arrives, and it belongs to ritual as much as to memory. I have not known anywhere that understands this more deeply. The evenings were heady and complicated, and they have stayed with me ever since. Night Blooms, India opens on pomegranate, red berries and pink peppercorn, then turns to jasmine sambac, clove and plum before settling into patchouli, vanilla and sandalwood. It has never been a shy fragrance, and it would be strange if it were.
Highland Retreat, Scotland
I moved to Scotland to study, and I fell for the spirit of the place: cold air and warm people, funny and fiercely welcoming, late nights and long conversations. Scotland gave me confidence. It is also where I met Chris, who had already travelled widely and gathered stories of his own. We came from very different backgrounds and realised we were both obsessed with how place shapes a person. Highland Retreat, Scotland holds that warmth inside its drama. Cognac, smoke and saffron open it, smoked cinnamon and leather sit at its heart, and the base of vanilla, patchouli, sandalwood and vetiver lasts long into the evening. It is a fragrance to come home to, ideally from somewhere cold.
City Grandeur, London
We built our working lives in London. It is a city of many worlds living side by side, with art, design, food, languages and music on every street. London taught us pace and taste, and it made us want to create something with real intention. City Grandeur, London opens with that energy, bergamot, lemon and lime arriving all at once. Black tea and rosemary bring a certain polish to the heart, and vetiver, moss and cedar keep its feet on the ground. It is invigorating and composed together, which is London on a good day.
Glorious Gardens, England
We lived in Kent and Sussex with our family, and those years changed the way I think about home. Chris retrained as a garden designer while we were there. Watching him work, I learned how much patience and knowledge go into making anything flourish in English soil, and how extraordinary an English garden really is. Rose, magnolia, geranium and wisteria, violet and green leaves, and the cool air after rain. Glorious Gardens, England gathers all of it into a garden at its peak, with cedar and musk beneath to let it settle.
Dancing Light, Lake Como
And now we are on Lake Como, in Italy. It is awe-inspiring, and it asks a great deal of anyone who works here. Craft and design are part of daily life, and the attention paid to how things look has made Told London more exacting in everything we do. The light on the water here has a quality unlike anywhere else, and Dancing Light, Lake Como is our attempt to translate it into scent. Fig leaf and honeysuckle open it, with muguet, wisteria and star jasmine at the heart and a soft base of musk, sandalwood and cedarwood. It is the fragrance of where we are right now, and of everything this place is still teaching us.
How the illustrations carry the story
Before any fragrance is composed, a place is drawn. Artist Kerry Lemon works from the memories and references we bring her and builds a series of hand-drawn motifs, each one a precise fragment of that place: a detail of architecture, a flower, a creature or an object that could belong nowhere else. The motifs circle each porcelain vessel like a private language, so you are already inside the story before the candle is lit.
Only then do we turn to the perfumers. World-class houses including Givaudan, Mastenbroek and Sozio translate each place into scent, to the standard of the finest personal perfumery. Each place has its own vessel, and a thread of memory runs through every one of them.
Related: Shop the full collection