We were excited to take part in Melbourne Design Week at At The Above gallery. We soft launched our new fragrance 'Cut-Continuum'. Our products will continue to be stocked by ATA, so if you are in Melbourne, be sure to check it out.
A “world-horizon” scent structure of potential future experiences, that are to be expected for the user at a given time, under various conditions, where the resulting sequences of anticipated experiences can be seen as corresponding to different possible worlds.
Milk and flora as potential life forces.
Find samples, with free shipping HERE.
Receive a credit of $33 toward a future 50 mL bottle with the purchase of the 'Specimen Index' sample set (see product page for details).
A chlorenic aquatic fragrance with subtleties gathered from the movement of water through its environment. Formlessness is liquid and has no definitive shape, instead it moves with nature and takes the shape of the wearer.
Find samples, with free shipping HERE.
Receive a credit of $33 toward a future 50 mL bottle with the purchase of the 'Specimen Index' sample set (see product page for details).
Designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret between 1931 and 1934, the Molitor building is located on the border between Paris and Boulogne-Billancourt. At a time when Haussmann-style architecture dominated Paris, Le Corbusier used this project to explore his Radiant City concept, creating what is considered the first glass-walled apartment block in architectural history. Securing the top two floors for his own residence, he delivered the remaining apartments with open floor plans, including only the essential sanitary facilities.
In his personal apartment, Le Corbusier experimented with innovative design ideas, such as an arched ceiling in a light-filled studio space, large cantilevered doors, a raised bed inspired by steamship cabins, and a rooftop garden. These elements not only reflected his functionalist principles but also demonstrated his commitment to reimagining modern living.
Experiencing spaces designed and inhabited by architects offers unique insights into their philosophies and creative processes. In this case, the apartment-studio exemplifies a dynamic, utilitarian aesthetic that redefines necessary comforts, avoids frivolity, and integrates inspiring spaces for creative living. (Another excellent example open to the public is the Schindler House in West Hollywood, California.)
Images abound on the internet, so we leave you with a more detailed view herein.
Kire-tsuzuki or 'cut continue' is often exemplified by the discontinuous continuum of breathing – the 'cut' between the exhale and inhale instills the simple fact that each exhale could be the last. This trope is often used in Japanese aesthetics and famously used by Hakuin, the Zen Master, whose teaching implores that we must be cut from the root of life in order to "see into one's own nature".
The dry landscape garden at Ryoan-ji is arranged within a large rectangle of raked gravel and bordered first with stone and moss before abutting a low earthen wall with a small pitched roof. The wall acts both as a cut and a continuum, because the scenery on the far side of the wall is borrowed by the dry landscape. Within the rectangle, the sand and 15 various sized stones exist within their 'own' stillness and suspended timeframe, compared to the borrowed scenery that moves within the patterns of nature. The borrowed scenery is vital, as the deceptive permanency of the dry landscape alone would communicate only part of the whole.
Ikebana, which translates literally to "making flowers live", is a revelation – to cut the flower from the root demonstrates the illusion of the flower's seemingly permanent nature within the earth and exposing it instead, in its pure untethered form.
The cultivation and burning of a stick of incense follows these same kire-tsuzuki aesthetics. The natural materials are grown, cut, and composed into sticks that, like the dry landscape gardens, defy time and apparent material degradation. To burn incense, wherever you choose to do so, a unique interplay between the incense and borrowed scenery arises. As the ember chases its way down the stick, a suspended rush of fragrance is released – emitting the true essence of the woods, the flowers, and the resins that once grew; rooted in earth in distant forests. A cut and a continuum, the past histories of these exotic botanicals are released with wavering smoke into nothingness.
Years ago, we found a mysterious object on the shelf of a recently deceased physics professor at an estate sale. It was 8 connected links that mathmatically moved around in the hands to create Buckminster Fuller tetrahedron-ish shapes.
The kinetic sculpture was originally designed by Paul Schatz in 1929, who's much more famous discovery was the Oloid, made in the same year. We aren't sure if there were any mass produced sculptures made after the discovery, or if it wasn't until 1975 when Flowerday Designs of England patented the design and began manufacturing an 8-segment 'Octyflex' sculpture and a 6-segment 'Hexyflex' iteration. A Flowerday Designs box from that time describes the sculpture as, "elegant geometric objects that you move and change in pleasing and surprising ways." They even managed to snag a quote from Buckminster Fuller for the back of the box, "I am extremely enthusiastic about the Octyflex."
From the now expired 1974 patent application explaining the design:
There is disclosed a manipulative toy in the form of a linkage containing an even number of at least six links, each of which links comprises a central limb with two end limbs projecting one from each end thereof in planes mutually perpendicular to one another, each end limb of each link being journalled alongside an end limb of an adjacent link so as to pivot generally coaxially therewith and enable the linkage to be successively turned inside out through a position in which it defines a planar polygon, in which position half the journalled pairs of limbs stand perpendicular to the plane of the polygon at each vertex thereof whilst the remaining journalled pairs of limbs lie in the plane of the polygon and project from the mid points of the sides of the polygon towards the centre thereof.
We noticed a trail of Octyflex and Hexyflex sculptures across the internet, but couldn't see any in current production. In an attempt to breath life back into this useless design object, we set out to see if we could make our own variation. Instead of chrome plated wire, we made our version from stainless steel and added vinyl endcaps to each internal segment so that the object rotates and flexes in a more satisfying way.
Taken from the Flowerday patent description of the object, we decided to call it 'Vortex Linkages' and are pleased that we can offer you this almost useless object that hopefully does nothing more than quiet your mind.
IDLE™ is a foundation for research aimed at aiding an individual's direct experiences in the aesthetic world. By studying how Zen has influenced the aesthetics of everyday life over the past thousand years, our research explores the potential to expand Zen theory through heightened awareness of sensory experiences and aesthetic conditions that transcend conditioned responses.
Zen can be understood as a philosophy that uses language and logic strategically to point beyond the self. The famous Zen saying, “The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon,” illustrates this: words and concepts are not the ultimate truth but tools that guide one toward it. In a humble way, we strive to serve as a tool, presenting aesthetic opportunities for personal experiences that move beyond consumption and ego. IDLE™ is the finger; the experience is the moon. Once the moon is realized, the finger becomes unnecessary.
Through this aesthetic practice, we seek to engage with people across sensory mediums, encouraging an understanding that transcends words and logic, leading to direct engagement with the present moment. Traditionally, a brand is designed to efficiently fulfill the specific needs of a customer, while art is seen as the expression of creative skill and imagination. But can a brand fulfill a customer’s need for the ineffable? Has art, in its commercialization, strayed from its original purpose?
Boundaries both separate and connect. They arise in the naming and categorizing of phenomena, forming distinctions that are inherently fluid and impermanent. Let us set aside these self-imposed limits and embrace the boundless potential of direct experience.
At IDLE, we approach fragrance not as our artistic expression but as a sensory medium for personal experience. In a world saturated with scent molecules, do we use our sense of smell only as a warning of danger? Or can it also guide us toward beauty and transcendence? Must everything smell like something familiar? Or can scent evoke feelings—abstract and ineffable?
Our fragrances reject traditional perfumery’s structures, conventions, trends, and economic compromises. Instead, we craft abstract scent compositions designed to inspire personal and open-ended experiences. Just as an abstract painting invites unrealized potentials, our fragrances ask nothing of their wearer except to engage and explore. They are uncompromising in their intent, offering a new way to connect with and experience the world.
As part of our practice of using a brand as a foundation for aesthetic exploration, we reflect deeply on how people might engage with our work. In the realm of fragrance, we resist traditional explanations or categorizations. We do not list scent notes detailing what you are “supposed” to smell or prescribe what we “hope” you experience. Conventional fragrance marketing often seeks to dictate perception; instead, we aim to offer a space for unrealized olfactory potential, inviting open and personal engagement.
This approach draws inspiration from the many vehicles Zen has employed to facilitate experiential transcendence. Consider Zen archery (kyūdō), a discipline where the act of drawing and releasing the bow becomes a practice in harmonizing conscious and unconscious actions. This blurring of subject and object fosters a state of non-duality aligned with Zen awareness. Similarly, Sen no Rikyū’s tea ceremony (chanoyu) offers a multisensory experience rooted in Zen principles such as mindfulness, non-attachment, and impermanence. Every element—from the design of the tea house and the placement of the flower to the structure of the ceremony—guides participants toward heightened awareness and insight.
When we describe ourselves as a brand creating objects and experiences for personal engagement, it is essential to define what we mean by “experience,” particularly in the context of “pure experience.” Nishida Kitarō, a prominent Japanese philosopher and founder of the Kyoto School, articulated this concept in his 1911 work, An Inquiry into the Good (Zen no Kenkyū). Nishida describes pure experience as a state of direct, immediate awareness—prior to the division of subject and object, thought and action, or self and other. It is unmediated perception, where the perceiver and the perceived dissolve into a unified whole.
In this sense, our fragrances are not merely products; they are sensory platforms that encourage direct engagement with the present moment. Like the tea ceremony or Zen archery, they invite you to transcend preconceptions and explore the ineffable potential of pure experience.
