The Imaginarium Of Christopher Chong

With ten years of helming the olfactory wheels at Amouage behind him, the perfumier launches his latest creation, Figment

Midway through dessert, Christopher Chong, the creative director of Amouage, slips out moments before he launches his latest creation, Figment, leaving behind a trail of mystique. Back at his villa in Alila, Jebel Akhdar, where beguiling woody and floral aromas are floating through the rooms, the narrative is set to begin against the backdrop of an elegant operatic setting.

Standing there in his embellished red Gucci suit, one is almost convinced that this man is theatrically going to conjure the bottle out of thin air like Houdini. Then again with Chong, the possibilities are limitless, as he has demonstrated in the ten years as the creative head of Amouage.

Through a short film, Chong takes his audience into the realms of his subconscious mind — where the perfume was birthed, somewhere between reality and fantasy. The manifestation is eerie, surreal, intense and at times dark but beautiful. The elements that feature in his imaginarium — that inspired Figment — ranges from the Bhutan of his imagination, opera houses in the Middle East, Galilean binoculars and silk threaded floral embroideries that gradually transform into a divine garden. These elements weave the fragrant narrative of the dream captured inside the opaque turquoise bottle.

Notes from the subconscious

Narratives are an important part of Amouage ever since Chong began nurturing the brand in 2007. Partly because he borrows the concept of storytelling from the brand’s native Arab culture and partly because of his own background in opera — an almost unusual place to produce a perfumier. But then again, like Chong points out, his imagination has guided him more than the alchemy and chemistry of perfume making. For instance, he points out that the floral threads of embroidery that feature in the imaginary gardens of Bhutan inspired tuberose as the heart note of Figment.

“But these stories,” says Chong, “are not always happy stories. A lot of people have this misconception that perfumes are always about happy notes. But I’ve celebrated darkness, death, lost love…because those are all human emotions and we cannot deny them. It’s a part of human life and I explore these feelings.”

An Australian journalist once called him the Sigmund Freud of perfumery. Chong does not shy away from the psychoanalytic processes of his methods. He’s even conceptualised a perfume from a dream. All these are an important part of the creative process, says Chong. “I like to work a lot on the subconscious,” he says, adding, “last year a lot of my work was based on surrealism and the dream state.”

Redemption in a bottle

Fragrances are powerful and emotive. It attaches onto the memory of an organism and pushes one through the doors of nostalgia in a whiff. And in some way the memory is a link to immortality. Chong explains this connection; the scent has the power to connect you with the memory of a person who is no longer a part of your life. It bridges your reality with the memory. “Memory becomes immortal and the fragrance that creates that memory becomes an element of immortality.” But he also warns of the dangers of a perfumier dwelling on the nostalgia of a scent. “We also have to protect our creative process,” he says and explains why he has to end the olfactory trance and detach from his previous creations. “When I concentrate and go into a bubble to focus on the next project I have to desensitise myself from the previous one,” says Chong.

At the same time, “connectivity” is also an integral part of his creative process. The notes of his perfumes carry layers of his own personal history — his feelings and his aspirations. “That’s the reason why people smell my work and say ‘I can connect with it’ because as humans we have similar feelings. I love connecting feelings with people. It’s about them taking over from where I left and creating their own story — their memoir,” says Chong. The perfume then becomes a redemptive outcome of the complexity of his imagination. “For other perfumiers it may be about blending and mixing ingredients. For me it is about mixing personal experiences of life and bottling a story to share with the world. That is how I do my work.”

Ten years down the fragrant lane

Chong, the day after the launch, has once again transformed. His simple demeanour cloaks his complex mind — the imaginarium where fragrant stories are constantly woven. Humour, witty remarks, honest confessions outline our conversation. Chong points out that his persona and work have both undergone a process of metamorphosis in these ten years. The artistry of his work has evolved too, beyond the dark, gloomy and sultry metaphors. “When I first started, I felt that these metaphors best described sophistication. Earlier my work was very moody and I remember saying back then that I would never work with florals.” He honestly remarks that he is “shell shocked to have made it”, now that he looks back at the timeline. When he was given the task of nurturing the brand it was relatively unknown. Today, Amouage is an internationallyrecognised brand and in many ways, the brand and the name of its master perfumier have synergised. The essence of the perfume industry has changed in the last decade — the market has changed, technology has evolved, robotic arms have come in and hybrid ingredients are replacing the synthetic ones. “A lot of brands have changed ownership. Competitors have come and gone. New brands are coming in and I am still here… . I wake up and see, I am still here. It’s been ten years and even now every single day I am still excited about what I do because for me. This isn’t a job or a hobby- it’s my life.”

The story was first published by the author on May 31, 2017 in Muscat Daily

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