Stora Skuggan: niche perfumes based on myth and legends
Stora Skuggan is a Swedish niche perfume brand that connects the weird and the wonderful. Each of the brand’s fragrances is based on a story that blends the borders between myth and reality. Fabulously outrageous perfume influences include: an ancient, now extinct spice; a mysterious figure known to haunt the forested area around a Swiss village; the unexplained booming sounds that are often heard over large expanses of water; and the inexplicable milky substance that grows from the roofs of limestone caves.
Niche perfumes with added meaning
These unexplained phenomena and mystical entities add an exciting extra layer to the enjoyment of Stora Skuggan niche perfumes. But they also heighten how perfumery itself functions like an abstract space between the real and the imagined. Perfumes are both physical and the ethereal, present but not visible, there and not there.
Stora Skuggan conceptualizes fantasy landscapes into real world aromachemicals. This interstitial zone of half truths stirs our fantasy the most by using what we already know to transport us to other realms. This olfactive escapism allies us to travel to new places and experience smells that are not only highly original, but verifiably beautiful.
Stora Skuggan niche perfumes as collaborative process
Founded by five friends Anna Barkne, Tomas Hempel, Olle Hemmendorff, Jonas Nordin and Martin Nicolausson, Stora Skuggan is proof of what the spirit of collaboration can achieve. Having met in the party scene centred around Stockholm’s Beckmans College of Design, the friends have complete control over all aspects of the brand, from concept development and fragrance, to design and packaging. The democratic, in-house approach is structured like a quirky, modern day guild, where a spirit of mutual support leads to unexplored paths of creative expression.
With ten nostrils to pass through rather than two, perfumes are developed with extreme precision. The process is consciously slow and new perfume formulas can take up to 4 years to perfect. Capturing myth and mystery takes time!
Niche Perfume and contemporary design
Stora Skuggan is not just about beautifully creative fragrances. The brand’s boxes and bottles adhere to the pitch perfect design principles you’d expect from a group of artists.
A sense of playful imagination informs the brand’s visual language. Most unmistakable are the oversized globular caps, which are cast in vivid colours to perfectly capture the mood of each scent. Stora Skuggan is a brand that has achieved its mission, it is a magical place of intersection between the intriguingly unknown and the strikingly visible.