It was great to be back in Milan. I love Italy’s fashion capital, but somehow I always seem very busy working whenever I’m there. This time I was back for Esxence, the annual fair for niche and independent fragrance. Luckily I had both Megan and Coco with me. I was incredibly grateful because Esxence 2024 was intense.
We launched into a frenzy of activity, working to a looming deadline to get the stand looking perfect for the opening. We barely had a moment to throw back an espresso for extra energy before the doors flew open. Immediately, it was very, very busy and my first meeting was with Sebastian Jara aka The Perfume Guy and we filmed an Instagram Live to announce Peach's Revenge, our new fruity gourmand by Chris Maurice.
Launching Peach’s Revenge at Esxence 2024
One of the things we were at Esxence to do was to launch the house’s newest extrait de parfum, Peach’s Revenge by nose Chris Maurice.
The Instagram live must have been widely viewed! Once word got out—and must have spread like wildfire—there was a great influx to the stand of visitors who had already heard about it, all wanting to smell it, all wanting to be among the first to experience it.
We were speed-spritzing to try and keep up with the sheer momentum of perfume sniffers. Coco was filling Peach's Revenge sample vials with our new BetterFly 2.0 samples closing machine that Andy made. It really was exciting for us because we think it’s a fantastic fragrance and it’s really great when other people think so too. Peach’s Revenge received an overwhelmingly positive response.
Over the course of the fair, numerous vloggers and influencers cited Peach’s Revenge as one of, if not the highlight of Esxence 2024—don’t just take our word for it, check out our story highlights on Instagram.
It's all about the people
One of the things that I like about Exsence is that it reminds me of art fairs; the serendipitous routes by which new people gravitate towards you, the intriguing coincidences of meeting new people.
Many visitors to the stand had heard about us for the very first time from our notorious Jungle Jezebel. They came by to say hello to our "Divine" bottle and sniff Miguel Matos' famous one-of-a-kind Jungle Jezebel.
A couple of people said that they had heard about me first from the Versace + Baroness project, and it was really nice to meet people who had watched those Versace videos I made, and who owned a copy of the book.
One person told me that she had learned about my work as an artist while she was in art school in Colorado. It was really nice to meet people from the art world!
Enthusiasts and perfume lovers visited from all over the world; and some people who I had been following online that I was particularly excited to meet in person for the first time. I was so flattered when they stopped by our stand to smell our fragrances. There were some visitors who headed to our stand to smell the perfumes for the first time ever, because our perfumes are not yet available in their region.
New doors
Of course, the main reason we were exhibiting at Esxence is to open new doors around the world, and we are sure to have opened up a few new doors, and we most certainly met a whole new audience.
We completely sold out of our available stocks of Peach's Revenge being prepared for shipment to retailers. It meant I had to get on the phone to Andy back in London to ask him to set a second batch of the new extrait in motion… pronto, per favore!
Ships passing in the night
The only thing that I regret about this year’s Esxence is that we literally did not get time to do anything else. I missed the opportunity to hang out with friends in the fragrance world, chat and catch up on news, and attend fantastic parties.
But, all three of us struggled to keep up with the avalanche of interest that hit our stand this year. When we weren’t talking with people and showing fragrances during the fair's opening hours, we were either catching up on the business cards or simply too tired to do anything.
I’m heading home from Milan completely exhausted. But, it’s a very good exhaustion. Addio, Milano! Fino alla prossima volta. Ciao xo
