Last week, at an artist residency exhibit in Pune, which featured performance, video and installations, a little pop-up stall was selling a niche perfume brand. Visitors seemed curious for a whiff of the brand and the owner, Manan Gandhi, was happy to oblige.
His brand, Bombay Perfumery, is not looking to explode into the market. Instead, pop-ups like these, a presence in select stores, and social media visibility are all they are looking for at the moment. And he says people appreciate their mindfulness in marketing. “Our blog or social pages are linked to interesting people in the creative community and I think people appreciate that it is not just a hard sell of our product’s brands.” The 31-year-old entrepreneur is positioning his brand rather carefully, in alignment with his personal affinity for the arts. “I’m not here to sell 50 bottles in a day. We try to do events where people can engage with not just the fragrances, but also the arts, because visitors to events like these are the kind to give us a chance, maybe now or later,” he explains.
Gandhi, who is hands-on — from production to marketing — is clear about the way Bombay Perfumery positions itself. He believes that fragrance is tied to their luxury aspirations. “We are mindful of the way we grow and reach customers. We are not just trying to sell a bottle of perfume, we are selling a frame of mind,” he says, adding they are closely entwined with arts and culture.
All in the genes
Considering that his family owns Associate Allied Chemicals, which has been supplying to fragrance houses around the world for over 40 years now, its no surprise that Gandhi took to the business.
After moving to Grasse, France, considered the world’s perfume capital, five years ago, to set up a company that supplies fragrance ingredients to perfume houses across France and Europe, Gandhi saw first hand the growing trend of independent perfumeries. “Ten or 15 years ago, you could not imagine smaller, niche brands making their mark. It was always about big names. But people in Europe were experimenting with smaller brands and I thought, why can’t this work in India?”
It’s no secret that some of the best fragrance ingredients like jasmine, tuberose and sandalwood come from India, but “all these ingredients get exported because there are no contemporary Indian brands to pay homage to them,” he explains. Thus began the journey to create Bombay Perfumery a year and a half ago, and they launched their eight fragrances — three for women, three for men and two unisex scents — in October, last year. Gandhi divides his time between his Mumbai and Grasse ventures, but since Bombay Perfumery is new, he spends more time on it at the moment.
Jasmine, chai, pepper
The company’s eight fragrances have some scents that are distinct to India — like the jasmine of Madurai and Chai Musk – but the process of creating these fragrance was exhaustive, having started out with about 300 directions.
While Gandhi was very sure of some of the scents he wanted to create – like one with pepper or vetiver oil as a central note – it took over a year and many drafts to find a balance in their line of fragrances. “We wanted to create something unique and unlike anything else on the market,” he adds. The same applied for the naming of scents, for which he paid homage to his travels. “We named one fragrance, Sulawesi, after a town in Indonesia where the patchouli comes from, and Les Cayes, after a seaport in Haiti, were vetiver is sourced from,” shares Gandhi.
As to the brand name, Bombay Perfumery? Gandhi says that his family once owned a company with the same name, defunct now, and therefore it held some nostalgic value. But the main reason, he says, is that they wanted to be clear that they were an Indian, contemporary fragrance house. “You hear the name and you are 100 per cent sure it is an Indian company.”
Room for more
Gandhi admits that at present, their customer base is a niche, fashion-forward audience, people who are early-adopters of homegrown brands. The only other contemporary Indian fragrance house is the Delhi-based The Perfume Library, but Gandhi isn’t too worried about competition. “It’s like saying there is only space for one brand of clothes. There is enough room for everybody.”
Previously only available online through the company’s website, Bombay Perfumery recently tied up with stores in six different cities across the country.
“We looked for partners who have a curated set of brands or products. We don’t want to be lost in the middle of hundreds of perfumes,” he explains, mentioning Le Mill in Mumbai, Pepper House in Kochi and Fervour in Bengaluru as their stockists.
“A customer who walks into these stores wants to discover a contemporary Indian brand,” he concludes.
