Chembur, bottled: Byredo’s new perfume, Mumbai Noise, works with memories  

Byredo’s Ben Gorham discusses his new fragrance, the links between memory and perfumes, and how he’s stayed away from the Indian cliché

Memories are potent, especially when they engage the different senses and the feelings evoked. So, it comes as no surprise that Ben Gorham, founder of perfume brand Byredo, has drawn on his recollections of time spent with his grandmother in Chembur, for the company’s newest fragrance, Mumbai Noise.

Gorham — born in Stockholm and brought up in New York and Toronto — had visited the Mumbai suburb, where his mother grew up, as a child. Fifteen years later, when he revisited it, much had changed, but many things that had permeated his recollections, such as the incense from the neighbourhood temple, hadn’t.

“All my inspirations for creating a perfume [approximately priced between ₹11,000 to ₹20,000] are connected to personal memories — places from my childhood, specific moments of my life,” says the Swedish native, who has been translating memories into much-loved fragrances since 2006. He calls it a completely subjective, intangible, esoteric process, which (for him, at least) is aided by being in one place. “Sweden has somehow focussed my mind and allowed it to wander at the same time.”

A city that always gives

For Mumbai Noise, Gorham has used strong aromas like davana (a herbaceous plant from South India), sandalwood, and even coffee together. “The olfactive approach is one of contrasts and contradictions. It’s an amber fragrance that features rich, warm woods with brightness, plummy davana positioned alongside leather, bitter coffee stirred with sweet tonka beans,” he says. “It’s a fragrance that commands your attention and envelopes your senses immediately. That’s how I feel when I am in Mumbai, in my family home — I wanted that overwhelming power of a place to come across.”

This is not the first time the city has inspired him, with Byredo having previously released Encens Chembur in 2008, a discontinued fragrance that features temple incense, amber ginger and bergamot, that he calls “a photograph of what I captured at that time”.

For Gorham, the death of his grandmother put an end to his holiday visits.