“This one’s from The Gambia, this from LA, Pakistan…” Nicholas Daley is talking Master Perfumer Jacques Chabert through his assortment of rings: an ovula shell, a turquoise gobstopper, gold and silver bands. Not a mishmash but a curation, and entirely symbolic of the plethora of influences from which he draws his inspiration for his menswear collections. A Central Saint Martins alumnus, designer Daley has spent the past decade building his brand, weaving a personal narrative and wider diasporic themes as well as nods to subcultural movements into his pieces – often tartaned, more often knitted. “I feel like everything I do is very much about who I am and what I represent both on my Scottish and my Jamaican side,” he explains. “So pulling from those ancestral places and links, but then also something which I feel is somewhat timeless. Some of the mills and factories I work with have been producing handmade shoes or fabrics for over a hundred years. I really like working with that mentality – finding something or using quite distinctive archetypes, and then bringing in a new flavour and energy.”
IN CONVERSATION WITH
Nicholas Daley
I feel like everything I do is very much about who I am and what I represent both on my Scottish and my Jamaican side. So pulling from those ancestral places and links, but then also something which I feel is somewhat timeless.
NICHOLAS DALEY
FASHION DESIGNER
It's this dedication to spotlighting his heritage and craftsmanship that allows Daley to stretch beyond the fashion realm and into music, the arts, culture – and even incense. A true collaborator, he has teamed up with the likes of Fred Perry, Mulberry, the V&A Dundee and the Southbank Centre to name a few – making him an ideal candidate for Artists of Note – and for interpreting the invigorating woody, citrus notes of Re-charge Black Pepper, a fragrance that, by pure coincidence, fuses notes directly connected to Daley’s heritage. “It's just really interesting that now my work or my vision can speak to a lot more than just within the context of a runway show,” he says as we chat in his studio in north London’s Tottenham. “I think it is important not to always just be forced into this fashion vacuum, which can be quite soulless.”
Daley talks passionately about a feeling of “kinship” and a “cross-pollination of different creatives” with his collaborators – a neat summation of Artists of Note, as well as his pairing with Master Perfumer Jacques Chabert, himself a fierce innovator and long-time Molton Brown collaborator. For the crew and talent alike, it's a real “a-ha!” moment when the two meet; there’s a warmth and mutual respect for each other’s vocations as well as a shared love for craft that frames their conversation. Spanning rule breaking, childhood memories, lineage through craft, Re-charge Black Pepper and Nicholas’ interpretation of the fragrance, this is a meeting of minds that views scent through the spectrum of heritage, family, and life.
IN CONVERSATION WITH NICHOLAS DALEY AND JACQUES CHABERT
ON INTERPRETING THE FRAGRANCE
Nicholas: We created a small capsule of hand-crocheted and hand-knitted items which are signature to [my] brand. The composition is a mixture of jute yarn, which is a natural yarn, and a little bit of sparkle with some metallic yarns, which respond to the packaging and the bottle design. So it was obviously looking at not just the smell, but everything which encompasses this as a project.
What really engaged me is the pepper. The sort of oak woodiness, the moss, those very deep naturalistic notes. I've developed incense… those were notes of cedarwood and patchouli and frankincense and moss, pine needle. I just really feel kinship to those notes with my upbringing and my ancestry. So whether it's from Jamaica or Scotland and the natural landscapes and the smells that are part of my experience through that. And I think that's the reason why Re-charge Black Pepper just had an automatic feeling.
ON RE-CHARGE BLACK PEPPER
Nicholas: I think the first thing’s always the deepness of it, I guess that’s the oak or moss. The undertone notes.
Jacques: What kind of overall impression do you get when you smell it right away? Is it fresh, deep?
Nicholas: Yeah, I think things which are deep - generally those are the smells and notes which I prefer.
Jacques: Normally fragrances are fresh on the top note, but you’ve got to compensate with the warmer tones in the dry down. You get right away some kind of fresh feeling – you’ve just got to get the signature of the fragrance behind.
Nicholas: Those notes which have been so important in my life – cedarwood, the natural landscape of Scotland – I definitely feel that was part of the reason why Re-charge Black Pepper is the one which I felt more of a connection with. Woody, moss, oakwood, cedarwood, pine needle are things which I feel very connected to.
Jacques: At the beginning, I isolated a top note which I’d smelled on a fragrance. A velvety green which I wanted to elaborate on. It took me a few years – every once in a while, I would work at it. Once it was done to my satisfaction, I added some woody parts. And then it was missing a freshness, so I put in some ginger oil, and I made sure that the whole thing kept a harmonious balance. I had plenty of time since it was not the result of any brief. Little by little, I added some elements, until I got what I perceived was something good.
ON BREAKING THE RULES
Nicholas: I think what’s interesting for me is that it was you yourself as an artisan who created that scent. Not for a brief, but for yourself. It’s the same way I design a jacket or a hat. You do it for the craft or the love of creating. It’s the same principle which I try to distil when I create my collections, or a show or an event. It’s a bit narcissistic, but you have to feel comfortable and confident.
Jacques: Normally I do fragrances as a response to a brief, and that was not the case for this one. But you can do very good things responding to a brief, also. There are no rules for getting inspired.
Nicholas: But it’s also good to break the rules.
Jacques: Rules are made to be broken sometimes! In the case of Re-charge Black Pepper, it was done without a brief. It was unsolicited, and that’s a rule breaking. Normally we answer briefs and that’s how it works. Every time you create something new, it’s a rule breaking. Because you combine things that you have not combined before, or in such a way that didn’t exist before. And to do that you need to break some kind of rule.
ON CRAFTSMANSHIP
Nicholas: Some of the relationships I have with my manufacturers across the UK - tartans being produced in Scotland, handmade shoes in Northampton - some of those brands I’ve been working with for multiple seasons. We’ve been creating lots of different tartans and different textiles, Irish linens. And that’s done over time. I think it’s also interesting how your relationship with Molton Brown has been an ongoing relationship. You’re able to bring together a duality, so then you can exchange ideas and create a bond.
Jacques: I started as someone who was in charge of natural raw materials. This is why still today I’m very much involved in purchasing and I get to know every batch we select and we buy. The same way you select your fabrics, I continue to select batches. that’s my craftsman side, which is complementary to my creative side.
Nicholas: I always like to start with fabric, feel it and touch it. Before you make a garment, you have to understand the composition, what’s in that material, how it’s woven, how it’s structured. It’s almost like when you go to smell the batches. That is the ground zero before you start building, and it’s interesting that you’re still very much in that.
ON MEMORY & SCENT
Nicholas: Is there a particular fragrance or scent or memory which takes you back to a place of happiness?
Jacques: I remember a few. I knew right away when my mother was putting on some cosmetics or lipstick to go out and do some errands. I remember also when we used to go on Sundays to the beach. The smell of hot sand, pine trees and seaweed combined was kind of liberating, because I knew that all constraints went away for the day. I could play and I didn’t have any constraints.
Nicholas: Memories for me within smells – similar to you, pine needle, cedarwood, those naturalistic notes.
Jacques: Cedarwood is beautiful.
Nicholas: Cedarwood and pine needles are always a note which I seem to come back to. And I think that’s also my time in Scotland. My aunties and my family, they’re based in Fife. It’s the start of the Highlands, and there are lots of natural wood smells and moss and these really amazing notes. I think going there as a young child and through my whole adolescence, even recently just walking and connecting with nature and those smells around it, it always makes me feel relaxed and quite spiritual.
Jacques: And it impacted your memory, so when you think of it, you still smell it in your head.
Nicholas: There’s this duality with smells and different cultures which I’m connected to through my ancestry. Smells from my West Indian-Jamaican side like allspice, pimento, rosemary, hibiscus. My dad’s from the bush, it’s right up in the hills. So cutting through the mangrove and all those amazing notes and smells and flowers. I think there’s something about both those naturalistic landscapes – Scotland and Jamaica both have very beautiful natural landscapes with lots of amazing smells. But very different!
ON HERITAGE & FAMILY
Nicholas: “My mother is a big inspiration, amazing mum. She’s been a real teacher and influence. Not just through visiting Scotland and experiencing all these ancestral links and appreciation for a place which is so close to my heart. But also on crafting and knitting. ‘The Head of Knitwear’ as she's always coined herself!
My family on my mum's side, a lot of the women worked in the jute mills [in Dundee] and they'd be on the looms. It was really tough and brutal, the hours, the labour involved. The coarseness of the yarn. There's a lot of history around it and it's something which I looked into at the Dundee Library, around poetry about the jute mills.
Jacques: Even though I was born in Grasse, my parents were not in the perfume industry. But my two daughters are. And the good thing is that my oldest daughter can speak in front of a crowd, which I cannot. And my other daughter can do wonderful presentations. We are pretty complementary, the three of us. We interact a lot. We don’t agree most of the time, but that is a good point, because they don’t want to comply with everything I say. Which is sometimes difficult for me! Good for the end product.
Nicholas: It’s similar to my mum and dad. They had a big passion for music, so they ran a reggae club night in Scotland from 1978 to 1982. They wanted to do it to reclaim that space in Scotland. It’s kind of passing the torch. All of that transferring of knowledge and experience, whether it’s through smell or a record. And even with the craft of it – my mum’s a big knitter, and obviously Scotland and wool and the tradition of knitting and hand-crocheting still features prominently in my collections today. I think it’s interesting how on both sides, with your daughters and my mum and dad, the fact that there’s this idea of lineage through craft. Whether it’s through a smell, or a hand-knitted hat.