Knife Thrower is a fragrance inspired by composer Claude Debussy’s visit to the Paris World Fair in 1889. The Exposition Universelle served as a melting pot of cultures, art, and innovation where Debussy absorbed new sights, sounds, and gained a clarity of musical direction that eventually reshaped Western classical music.
Among the throngs of curious visitors, Debussy witnessed exotic timbres, rhythms, and a strange new harmonic language of the Javanese gamelan orchestra. He incorporated these components into his later compositions, popularizing the use of the pentatonic scale in Western classical music.
I have always been drawn to Debussy’s imaginative, textural, tonal, and harmonic musical voice. I wanted to craft a fragrance inspired by this time when Debussy’s music, fluid and dynamic like the great impressionists—who also influenced the cultural, artistic, and intellectual zeitgeist of late 19th century France—evolved and grew.
In creating Knife Thrower, I imagined Debussy wandering around the fair, mesmerized by this new sound and the excitement and challenge of how to use it in his own music.
Suddenly, a virile man from North America emerges from the crowd and begins throwing knives with incredible skill and precision. Deepening his own convictions and creativity, Debussy is struck by the sharp resolve and skill of this strange artist. To encapsulate this scene, I selected crisp notes of grapefruit, bright ginger, and refreshing melon to represent the initial burst of excitement and inspiration. Grounding musk and woods capture the knife thrower’s skill, precision and unwavering focus of this encouraging fougére fragrance.
Knife Thrower is about confidence. Like Debussy and the Knife Thrower, the wearer is undistracted and focused, ready to make their unique mark on the world. As you wear this fragrance, I invite you to navigate your world with the same clarity and determination that defined them both.
– Sean Colbert