Fragrance Appreciation for Curious Beginners
Taught by Jessica Murphy
Jessica Murphy is an art historian and museum professional with a longtime passion for perfume. She's been a contributor at the blog Now Smell This since 2007, and since 2015 she's been giving presentations about the cultural history of fragrance via the Institute for Art and Olfaction, the Brooklyn Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass, and other venues. Her writing about scent has appeared in Atlas Obscura and Viscose Journal and she's been interviewed by Vogue, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Harper’s Bazaar, Decoder Ring, and other media outlets. She shares her thoughts on olfactory and visual topics at her Substack, Show & Smell.
According to industry reports, more than 7,000 new fragrances were released in 2024. How can anyone begin exploring perfume without feeling overwhelmed?
In this class, we'll take a more cultural and intuitive approach to learning about scent, moving away from technical jargon and traditional information like "fragrance families." Instead, we'll think about perfume as an art form we can sample and study, similar to wine, film, or fashion. We'll also discuss strategies for finding perfumes that suit our personal tastes, from shopping suggestions to recommended readings and more, and we'll do some smelling exercises throughout the class.
