A new perfume has been created inspired by this quote of Karl Lagerfeld, a heavy hitter in the fashion world working with the likes of Chanel and Fendi among others.

“The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world.”

Well, hmmm, I never really thought about it before, but I can distinctly recall the smell of a fresh book after reading his words – so he could be onto something.  But does it really make you smell like a book?  And would people actually go for it?

The fragrance, titled Paper Passion, was the project of Wallpaper magazine based on the words of Mr. Lagerfeld.  To achieve the scent, master perfumer Geza Schoen was called upon.  Schoen had this to say:

“You have a book, you open it, there’s a bottle inside and it smells of a book. It might be quirky, but the idea has a simplicity, a linearity.”

One of the cooler parts of Paper Passion is that it comes inside a hollowed out book.  The book holding the perfume is being published by Steidl a major publisher in Germany.

In addition to the bottle of perfume, this book also contains passages from Lagerfeld and Schoen as well as Wallpaper magazine’s editor Tony Chambers and Nobel Prize winning writer Günter Grass.

It all looks like it’s shaping up to be a good release but in the description I’m left with a suspicious feeling.  Does it really smell like a book? It seems like it does but they often used phrases like “based on” without really saying straight out “this stuff really smells like a book.”

It looks like I’ll never know for sure until I smell it for myself, and at US$98.00 a bottle I’m not sure I’d take the plunge.  So if anyone else out there can’t resist checking if it smells like books, let us know what you find.  I’m going to wait until they make a perfume that smells like a brand new CD.

Original Author: Anji Tabata
Source: steidlville.com

▼It looks like a book. Where’s the perfume?

▼Bam! There it is.

▼Even when you’re finished with the perfume you can use the book to hide other contraband.

▼The Silent Smell of Paper: by Karl Lagerfeld.

▼Right, so what’s this stuff smell like already?!

[ Read in Japanese ]