Byredo Celebrates 10 Years with No Name
Through a large crowd across the length of his signature boutique, one can’t help but notice in an instant the very tall, dark-haired, bearded man with mysterious dreamy eyes. His name is Ben Gorham, the founder of Stockholm fragrance brand Byredo, and he is now making his way into leather goods while celebrating 10 years of being in the fragrance business.
I asked Gorham if he saw himself get here, and he admitted, “Yeah, I think so.… It’s a bit like watching your kids grow up too quick, and there’s some anxiety in that, I think.” “Well, a quick growth, but, really, an expansion [into the fashion business] as well,” I quipped. “So it’s like lots of kids,” he replied with laughter. When Gorham first launched 10 years ago, at Barneys New York, the tattooed and exotic-looking six-foot-five Swede’s scents were a runaway hit. With his cool, clean, minimal, and streamlined aesthetic, everyone had to dive into his world then, and they still do now. Along with Gorham’s go-to friends and famed photographer couple Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, and with Swedish actress Noomi Rapace present, Byredo fans were thinking what to name the new scent, which has no name.
Yes, it’s true. His 10th-anniversary scent has no name. Literally, the label is blank. But it comes with stencils to create one’s own label. Brilliant, I thought, so I asked him how it came about—the no-name, unnamed project. “That’s a project when you run out of ideas,” he answered jokingly, “but we’ve done many collaborations in the past with specific people, and so this really is the ultimate collaboration, allowing people to really create the narrative. And when people post them, I get thousands of more ideas back.” Like I said, it’s brilliant, and so is the scent, no matter what name it may bear.