Books shaped a large part of the early creative direction for CELIE & COUCH. If the namesake came from the books ‘The Color Purple’ and ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’ then ‘Proper Yorkshire’, the first collection, was inspired by favourite childhood book ‘The Secret Garden’.
Quintessentially English and Northern, I was interested in its juxtaposition against a series that came out shortly after I conceived CELIE & COUCH- David Olusoga’s ‘Black and British: A Forgotten History’.
The series gave me a new perspective on the ‘The Secret Garden’, which I reread for the first time since my early teens. Mary’s enraged reaction to Martha (who thought she’d be dark skinned) was a telling statement that whiteness is central to Britishness. As is her annoyance at being expected to dress herself from a classist perspective. And yes, this is obvious even to those who may perpetuate the lie.
The point isn’t to try and cancel a book- that’s not what CELIE & COUCH is about. When you wear a scent in this collection, I want you to transport you to those same moors and plains of Yorkshire on a summer’s day- one scent each for dawn, day and dusk.
The point is that I designed PROPER YORKSHIRE to question and expand our collective mental shorthand for what is “Northern” and who is “British” by extension. The point is that Britishness shouldn’t be performative if it can be performed by a perfume.
Yorkshire Buds | 3 x 2 ml Green Perfume Scents
Rural Yorkshire in summer and scent.
The fresh baking resting on a window sill of a moorland cottage, as the Sun is stirring, Homely, hungry aromas depart fresh bakes on a cottage kitchen window, to meet the first winds of the moor at dawn.
The warmth and birdsong of midday in the country, with dirt and sweet-smelling things. Something jovial emanates from the grasses and flowers.
The fading light of dusk in a copse, in company of the earth and an old gnarled log. Old wildfire ash settles into deep damp dirt.
