The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Friday April 17th — —

“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Friday April 17th — —

I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Friday April 17th — —

Atelier des Martyrs

Since the very moment we stumbled upon the first imagery by coincidence, we have been fascinated by Atelier des Martyrs. The New York City-based and French made brand was erupted to create beautiful products to fragrance the home, and is now searching for final funding via Kickstarter to start their journey and get the first series of products produced. Following an extensive but unsatisfying research in the landscape of scented candles, founder Matthieu discovered the deficiency in simple, well designed, gender neutral, and above all natural and cruelty free products. In order for Atelier des Martyrs to become all the things mentioned and more, an entire suit of olfactory products were developed by Matthieu and his team, prototyped to absolute perfection. All candles are handmade using mouth blown glass, cotton wicks and only pure natural Rapeseed wax for the candles, resulting in a line of ecologically friendly products of the highest quality.

Our goals are to open doors to scented memories and invisible gardens, summoning beauty and reverie to your everyday life.

The founder of Atelier des Martyrs – who remains to be known by his first name; Matthieu – grew up in a little village in the South of France, after which he moved to New York City where he started working in a perfume lab. Slowly his vision for Atelier des Martyrs presented itself to him, and he focussed on developing the best possibly products. In this proces finding basic accords for the different fragrances was key, as this determines the character of a scent. Matthieu’s favorite scented plant is the tuberose. Its fragrance of night blooming jasmine and warm skin inhabits everything one can wish for in a romantic perfume, in his words – addictive, sensual and dramatic. It is said that in Victorian England young girls were told not to smell tuberose blossom after sundown, as its carnal aroma were believed to encouraged lascivious thoughts. Which became his exact goal, when he created the candles based on the scent of tuberose.

Another one of Matthieu’s signature preferences in fragrances is his love for the Chypre scent. An Oakmoss powder called Cyprus powder is an example of it – very fashionable in the era of French empress Marie Antoinette – with a composition consiting of orange blossom, cloves, ambergris and roses. A contemporary interpretation of that extraordinary fragrance is an interplay of citrus, floral mossy and amber leathery notes, which was implemented in Atelier des Martyrs’ Oak moss – vetiver – scented candle and the pine needle one. Overhall a floral element is to be found in all Atelier des Martyrs candles, sometimes being just a blurry underlayer – with every fragrance aiming for the perfect interplay of the different ingredients.

Everyone has a garden locked away in their memory, the meadows behind the house, the river banks covered with wildflowers and thyme, walking barefoot in the soft grass, looking at the sky through pine tree canopy … Creating perfume is for me like holding a key to those memories.

Support Atelier des Martyrs via Kickstarter here.