Ulla Johnson is taking on a new territory.
Roughly 25 years after founding her namesake brand, Johnson is entering beauty with a range of both personal and home fragrances, simply called Ulla. The name stems from the designer’s own personal relationship with scent.
“Fragrance has always been incredibly close to my heart, because my brand is so much about emotion and how we make women feel, all of that being at the heart of the creative impulse,” said Johnson, adding that “the business has really evolved in a very organic way.”
The launch is made up of a trio of eaux de parfums called Drift Rose, Baroque Garden and Adriatic Gold. They each retail for $210. Similarly, the brand is launching candles for $135 each in scents Gold, Coral, Celadon and Cowrie, in addition to incense and an accompanying porcelain holder, which respectively will sell for $55 and $240. In addition to Ulla Johnson boutiques, the fragrances are launching with Violet Grey.
“So much of what we do is about how the woman herself puts it together, this sense of exploration, discovery and being transported,” Johnson said. “You smell something that reminds you of a person, or a place or a time in your life. In that narrative of wanderlust that exists around the brand, scent makes a great deal of sense.”
The scents were nosed by Lyn Harris and developed via Robertet, and the bottles — inspired by 19th century Chinese snuff bottles — feature porcelain caps designed by Jonathan Yamakami. The candle vessels, as well as the incense holder, are also handcrafted.
“There’s something alchemical and witchy about the way that she works, and something intoxicating I found about her scents,” Johnson said of Harris. “There’s a real depth and sophistication to the scents that she has in her collection and she’s worked on many things over the years.”
Drift Rose highlights lemon Sicily, white peach, immortelle, Turkish rose essence, cardamom India, sandalwood, vetiver Haiti and papyrus India. Baroque Garden has notes of bergamot Calabria, galbanum Iran, jasmine Egypt absolute, ylang absolute, irone, orange flower, absolute Tunisia, black pepper, vanilla absolute and white mask. Adriatic Gold pairs bergamot Calabria, mandarin Italy, orange flower absolute Tunisia, jasmine absolute Egypt, ylang absolute, angelica seed, black pepper, sandalwood, rice absolute and white musk.
“By putting the customer at the heart of all of her design, it has allowed us to have a very strong consumer base, kind of a cult following,” said Thibaut Perrin-Faivre, chief executive officer of Ulla Johnson. “We took a lot of time to develop this range, and now we felt it was complete. It’s also a good time from a brand awareness perspective. We see strong growth globally for the brand in the U.K., in Europe, in Southeast Asia. There is a momentum we want to capture.”
The brand doesn’t have immediate expansion plans, and the beauty business will be marked by the same deliberate approach Johnson took with her clothing. “We are going to take our time,” Perrin-Faivre said. “Ulla built her brand step-by-step, and we are going to do the same thing with fragrance.”
As for future areas of beauty, Johnson showed interest in makeup. “I’m obsessed with color, I feel like I’m known for color, we play with color a great deal in the ready-to-wear, unexpected juxtapositions and hyper-saturated colors and pastels. Makeup would be exciting, and I’m obsessed with skin care, too. I’m drawn to things that are both beautiful and good for you, so it’s definitely a space I would be interested in participating in in some capacity,” she said.
That will add another dimension to the brand’s interaction with its shoppers. “Because we don’t have a licensor and we do everything in-house, fashion and fragrance are going to be really tied together in that both come from Ulla,” Perrin-Faivre said. “It has been a subject of conversation for a lot of fashion brands, how to use fashion and how to use beauty for each other. I don’t think you do that, I think you just create a very seamless client journey and that’s how you make the most of it.”
