Reference Studios Launches Its Brand Through AI-Powered Fragrances
Reference Studios, a Berlin-based communications agency founded in 2017, is rapidly expanding. Fresh from announcing the opening of its Paris outpost, to complement its already-established Milan office, it is launching a brand named Reference Times.
An interdisciplinary platform for products developed by Reference Studios, the brand’s first creation is a three-part fragrance collaboration.
Reference Times — together with EveryHuman, a company that combines cutting-edge technologies with perfume, and NO/FAITH STUDIOS, one of Germany’s most exciting independent brands — is launching a customizable scent using EveryHuman’s Algorithmic Perfumery machine.
The Algorithmic Perfumery machine utilizes artificial intelligence to understand each customer's tastes and creates hyper-personal scents through that data.
“We are excited to be the scent medium for Reference Times, and to showcase the breadth of possibilities Algorithmic Perfumery enables. NO/FAITH STUDIOS is the first artist in residency to experiment and play with our newest small-size sensory machine and its revamped palette of ingredients,” says Anahita Mekanik and Frederik Duerinck, founders of EveryHuman. “This is a defining moment in our journey, and in realizing our dream to create a platform for every human to create.”
In the Dover Street Parfums Market in Paris, an exclusive NO/FAITH STUDIOS perfume is available to be shopped and customized to each individual until October 15. A small version of EveryHuman’s Algorithmic Perfumery machine mixes ingredients, produces made-to-measure fragrances, and vacuum seals the perfume in biodegradable packaging.
Part of a Reference Times residency that ends in November, NO/FAITH STUDIOS is the first of three collaborators to create its own scent. The following two collaborators are yet to be revealed.
“We tried to create a scent that embodies the NO/FAITH STUDIOS DNA,” says Luis Dobbelgarten, founder and designer of NO/FAITH STUDIOS. “For some people, it might be a heavy hitter, but that’s the beauty in our design language. This perfume has so many details, just like our leather pieces. It’s weird for the outsiders, but our customers will understand why we chose this scent.”
Reference Studios has always embarked on ambitious projects, from launching a cross-cultural festival to breathing new life into Berlin Fashion Week with its INTERVENTION Project. Creating a brand is yet another example of the agency's interdisciplinary leanings.
“In the sequence of my long-lasting collaboration with Reference Studios and Mumi Haiati, I feel honored to join forces with him on this truly special project, which at its essence serves our creative partners as a new channel or tool of expression,” says Tim Philip Neugebauer, creative lead of Reference Studios.
“With Reference Times, we become a publisher of a type of media that’s as pure and primal as it is artful and unexpected.”
