Brianna Lipovsky | Maison d’Etto
"I look at each individual fragrance as a piece of art
and each collection as an exhibit.”
Maison d’ Etto is a collection of luxurious, gender-neutral artisanal fragrances that launched at The Future Perfect gallery in 2019 with Collection I, which included 5 signature scents: Rotano, Karat EG, Canaan, Macanudo, and Durban Jane. The brand recently released the first scent from Collection II, Noisette, as well as a limited-edition collection of silk scarves.
“Maison d’Etto is about inspiring moments of connection, reflection, well-being, and nurturing the human spirit one moment at a time. The first collection, 'Connection to Self,' is represented by 5 horses that had a tremendous pivotal impact on my life. We are in the stage where we can take risks, use insanely expensive ingredients and roll the dice,” says Founder Brianna Lipovsky.
Here, she shares what guides her aesthetic, and what we can expect from Maison d’Etto going forward.
You began with scent memories from your life’s equestrian experiences—why were those so meaningful to you, and how did that lead you to create Maison d’Etto? Horses have been a constant in my life from the age of five, and in my adult years, work was spent with or around horses, riding, and competing. After having my daughter and seeing how brands were really fragmenting around psychographic niches versus just demographics, I felt that it was my time to build and create something around my two passions – horses and scent – combined with my background in luxury, fashion, and design. I have had close to 35 years of intimate experiences with these animals and so many amazing stories, experiences and personalities that I could deeply dive into creatively with authenticity and truth. It served as an incredible platform for me to create from but make something that was profound enough that it could really speak to anyone and serve as a metaphor.
I look at each individual fragrance as a piece of art and each collection as an exhibit. So the brand Maison d’Etto is about inspiring moments of connection, reflection, well-being, and nurturing the human spirit one moment at a time. Our first collection, “Connection to Self,” is represented by 5 horses that had huge pivotal impacts on my life. Our next collection is titled, “Connection to Nature” and it will feature stories that took place on horseback but immersed in nature. The fragrance that will launch for holidays took place in the French Pyrenees on a very special palomino mare, Noisette.
What are some of your earliest or clearest scent memories? The smell of leather, the inside of a barn, rain, freshly turned earth—to name just a few of the scents that come with the territory of being an equestrian— and evoke memories that carry with them unexpectedly universal feelings. I transformed these sensory triggers into the five fragrances that make up the first collection.
You had a very clear sense from the beginning not only about how you wanted the scents to smell, but how you wanted them to look and fit into people’s environments. What inspired this vision? Yes, we did not come at this from a traditional beauty or fragrance perspective at all. That was very important to me. We drew inspiration from art, architecture, and design as well as a unique interpretation of the contemporary equestrian lifestyle, which is extremely nomadic. I not only wanted to be known for our fragrances, but for our packaging and the entire Maison d’Etto experience. Knowing how transitional many of our clients are we wanted everything to be not only beautiful, an object of art in and of itself, but also practical, and portable. I worked with the insanely talented and world-renowned graphic and product designer Lotta Nieminen as well as space and interior designer Olivia Song to help ensure that our products are adding an aesthetic value to each client’s living space and home.
The packaging is extremely considered. I wanted to create something sustainable and beautiful, but not just for the sake of sustainability. For example, we could create sustainable, recyclable, but inevitably throw-away, or we could create something with wonderful quality with a focus on materials that will last the test of time- something that you want to hold onto and treasure, like an Hermès box for example. Our discovery set, after use, provides a beautiful design piece to place in a room or save jewelry in.
The bottle itself is an objet 'd’art. Tell us about that design process? I was inspired by seminal artists, including Wassily Kandinsky and Agnes Martin, along with a love for simple silhouettes and the struggle to achieve the perfect form— the circle. The imagery of the bottle is representative of a struggle to reach perfection and the realization, through dressage, that I will never be able to walk a horse in a perfect circle— a reality I eventually had to graciously concede to without letting it deter me from continually trying to excel in the sport.
Beyond just aesthetics, I also thought about the tactile, physical experience of holding the perfume bottle—the weight of the cap and the shape and size of the bottle were conceived in order to fit comfortably in the hands of any individual… including my young daughter. In fact, the final design for the cap came from her teacup-shaped play-do mold. The brand is truly personal and symbolic, in every sense of the word!
How do you believe that fragrance can help us connect with each other, ourselves, and to the world around us? As we all know, scent is the only sense that we have as humans that goes straight into the limbic system and isn’t processed elsewhere in the brain. This guttural, reactionary nature I find to be deeply therapeutic. It almost brings you back to a childlike state. I was able to apply those same techniques to the world of mindfulness, consciousness, and meditation that translated into awareness and appreciation in even the most mundane aspects of life. I am so intrigued with the intersection of fragrance and science, the brain and the mind.
The brand focuses on five key aspects of connection — the sacred pillars that help us to achieve a sense of balance and wholeness. These include: connection to self, connection to others, connection to nature, connection to the world, and finally, connection to finding one’s purpose. These aspects will be brought to life with more robust programming and community-based initiatives.
What was the idea behind the name Maison d’Etto? Etto is a combination of Ethics + Motto, It represents the core truths and beliefs you carry with you despite where you are or what you are going through in life. It also stands for “Each To Their Own”. It is a brand that refuses to dictate values and beliefs to its wearer, but rather empowers them to explore what Etto uniquely means to them.
I hope the fragrances will create a moment that encourages people to connect with nature and with themselves. I find this repose in the ritual of spraying on my own perfume, just “five sacred seconds” especially when there is no time for a proper meditation session.
What is your process for working with perfumers, and what have you learned from them along the way? It’s unconventional to say the least! Sometimes it can be a straightforward brief, but even then it’s just a springboard – there is always plenty of room for interpretation and space for each performer’s signature style to come through. Perfumers are creatives. I really like to work with perfumers that connect with energy, passion, emotion, and can distill all of those things into an incredibly soulful fragrance. I have learned from perfumers to love and enjoy life and to surrender to the beauty and frustrations of life and perfumery. Sometimes it just works and other times you can’t force it, you have to just give it space, time, and a lot of patience. The more you respect the fragrance the more it will give to you.
What achievement has been most gratifying for you since the brand’s launch? Hands down the most gratifying achievement was the ‘Our Love Letter to You’ initiative that we did during the first wave of Covid-19 in May when the tri-state was absolutely inundated with cases. I wanted to do something special for the doctors on the front lines. We partnered with IFF and other like-minded brands (Costa Brazil by Francisco Costa, Diptyque, and others) to donate care packages to healthcare workers.
IFF discovered through fMRI technology that one of the ingredients used in the fragrance, which by the way was still a complete work in progress, was associated with activating parts of the brain involved in relaxation. Our purpose was to bring respite, hope, and peace to healthcare workers through a new fragrance we were working on at the time. It was a true moment of community, care, commitment, love, and gratitude.
Maison d’ Etto recently launched a collection of (incredibly beautiful I might add) silk scarves. Tell us about that? Scents last longer on fabric or clothing than on skin, and I love the idea of wearing a scarf (especially a loved one’s) and smelling their sillage. I tapped creative studio Lotta Nieminen and designer Beth Anne Caples of Irwin Garden to collaborate on the collection. “We sourced 100% silk twill for this first collection that has a luxurious weight and hand feel and the hem is finished by hand. The best scarves are made in France so it seemed natural to turn to them when we wanted to launch scarves for Maison d’Etto. When embarking on a new product I am passionate about working with family-run mills and factories, it's been my experience that they care deeply about what they are creating and you really feel it in the end product. That was certainly the case here. The mill has been in business since 1929, and for good reason, they are truly one of the leading silk weavers.” - Beth Anne Caples, Irwin Garden.
“The patterns used throughout the brand’s visual identity are derived and abstracted from architectural references. A stable in Argentina by Studio Ramos, where architecture and nature seamlessly meet, served as inspiration for the hero pattern used in the packaging, and creates a sense of place in both print and digital implementations. All patterns follow the rule of using rectangular shapes only; remaining versatile, but cohesive, and never organic.”- Lotta Nieminen
Text: Veronica H. Speck Photos: Dora Somosi, Sylvia Austin, Lauren Coleman Follow: @maisondetto