Polaroid Echoes and Perfect Perfume Memories

Ben Gorham, the creator behind Stockholm-based Byredo, is a compellingly contemporary young man. He's tall, dark and handsome, but also heavily tattooed; his father is Swedish, his mother, Indian, so he grew up around the world; and he's a guy's guy who played professional basketball but then turned from that to dive into perfumery. FA2L was also happy to discover he's a smart conversationalist who enjoys discussing anything except his fragrances, which he generally prefers be allowed to speak for themselves.

Gorham's most recent creation is La Tulipe, which smells exactly like its namesake. There are notes of freesia and vetiver (providing a tenacious base), but the clarion call at the perfume's heart is as sharp, green and pretty as a bowl full of bright Dutch stems. This is no small feat: few, if any, fragrances are based on tulips. Not everyone will love it (soliflores, built around a single flower, are notoriously difficult to wear) but those who do will fall hard. Which is precisely what makes perfume so compelling: like Anthony Philip Festa's polaroid, it resonates in the memory, plays tricks with time and hints at moments, however fleeting, when you felt beautiful, witty or blissfully happy.

Photograph by Anthony Philip Festa.