>Project Blog
By SHOWstudio, 18:41 Fri 03 Apr 2009
uc_titanfighters_violence_low_hm.mp4
A follow-on - and arguably a step up - from our earlier foray into sweat-soaked post-fight t-shirting, our latest Violence update lives up to the project name (and is not for those of a delicate constitution). A week ago, Tristan Thomson and Antony Parsons filmed the fights and the aftermath of an Ultimate Challenge UK cage combat event at East London's Troxy. Our three minute edit, featuring the Titan fighters team Chris Grieg, Jason Young, Brad 'One Punch' Pickett, Dean Bray and Mickey Papas, captures in explicit detail the raw brutality of cage combat as the contestants spar. In startling contrast, to close the film Tristan towels down the contestants to send further samples to Sissel Tolaas in Berlin to help bring the Violence fragrance to fruition.
Many thanks to the Titan Fighters team, Dave O'Donnell and Atif.
By Studio, 11:50 Fri 13 Mar 2009
violence_low_hm.mp4
Shot in a Central London gym this short clip shows Nick and Sissel Tolass' continuing research into isolating the chemicals that are released into the body during an aggressive violent act. This is the first of many such tests so keep tuning in to the process blog over the next few weeks. For the curious, that's Tristan, Nick's first assistant peeling the sodden T-shirt from one of the fighters and packing it into a sealed bag ready to be sent off to Sissel's lab in Berlin.
By nick knight, 14:47 Fri 20 Feb 2009
Dear Nick, yes the topic pheromones is of great importance!!!!!
The word "pheromone" comes from the Greek words perein=transmit and
hormon=stimulate. A pheromone is a messenger of stimulation that tells us
when and where we should gather and then separate. It tells us how we should
behave toward the other sex and how we should know whether it is in fact the
other sex. Pheromones tell us how to organize the members of a society in a
structure befitting their dominance; they mark the exact borders of a
territory. They also tell us how we can be sure beyond a doubt that we are
ourselves.
Pheromones regulate power relationships, association and above all - SEX.
Pheromones provide unconscious data from an arsenal of information that can
be decisive for the course of human communication.
Considering the flood of pheromone communication that reaches us directly,
it is no wonder that Western society, cut off from smell perception and
over-deodorized as it is, tries to stimulate sexual attractiveness and
activity with the help of artificial pheromones. This is doomed to failure
because it is like cutting down the forest in order to plant trees.
As human beings (men and women) we have the ability to sense certain
chemical signals emitted by people around us—without being aware of it? We
use a separate set of sensory receptor cells in our nose to receive social
and sexual information from members of our own species.
Testosterone is a hormone produced primarily in men's testes. The adrenal
glands of both men and women also produce small amounts of testosterone.
In men, testosterone produces sperm, facial and body hair, deep voices, and
muscle mass and strength.
Testosterone is associated with two behaviors in males: aggressive dominance
of other males, and sexual activity. E.g., male red deer live peacefully
together for most of the year. But in October their testosterone increases
five-fold. They fight for territory. Female red deer select land that has
sufficient food for raising fawns. The males that control the best
territories mate with the most females.
Testosterone is an anti-depressant, in men and women. It increases
friendliness. It reduces anger, depression, fatigue, confusion, nervousness,
and irritability.
That may seem contradictory-testosterone makes males fight, yet makes them
friendly. Testosterone makes males want to mate. If fighting precedes
mating--e.g., gorillas--testosterone makes males fight. But if mating
requires friendship e.g., baboons- testosterone makes males friendly.
Testosterone varies between men more than four times. Football players have
the most testosterone. Ministers have the least.
Bacteria and fungi live on your skin and in your clothes. These organisms
drink your sweat and digest your discarded skin cells. Their excretions make
you smell . That's body odour.
Body odour can provide be interesting signs of a specific state of mind as
well as or of a more serious medical condition.
When our "fighters" fight and sweat, we smell these molecules that live on
their skin, mixed with their sweat. Each human body have a body smell as
unique as their fingerprint - in sweat this is what we smell underneath the
external molecules that live on the surface of the skin.
New research has shown that some individuals are highly sensitive to
smelling a component of body odour which is called androstenone.
Furthermore, if the person can easily smell androstenone then he will decide
whether or not he likes the person based on the smell. What is androstenone?
It is a human pheromone which is a chemical attractant that is found in body
secretions like perspiration. Men release large quantities of androstenone
while women omit small amounts. So men are more likely to be judged by their
smell than women. According to the study, fifty percent of people the
population cannot smell androstenone at all and one half of them can only
catch a whiff and enjoy the scent. Those who can smell androstenone, on the
other hand, do not like the smell and compare it to urine or perspiration.
The study went on to show that there was a correlation between the ability
to smell androstenone and the androstenone-smeller's judgment of the person.
In other words, if someone can smell androstenone on someone else and finds
the smell unpleasant then he will dislike the person, or may be not……….
Attached acouple of artickle on the topic!
SORRY I DID NOT MEAN TO WRITE A BOKK........but the topic is what it is all
about!!!! = INVISIBLE COMMUNICATION
Speak soon!
Love SisselXXX
By nick knight, 15:13 Thu 19 Feb 2009
Dear Sissel,
The Violence 2 is a lot more interesting than the first prototype.
My first impression was that there was something more animal about it. It smelt more menacing/ dangerous and I wondered if it was my desire to feel this or wether there was the beginning of a instinctive reaction to the smell.
Our theory is that when men (or indeed women,but that is part two of this project) fight they release pheromones that are only released when the "fight or flight"response is activated. Furthermore the pheromones we are trying to isolate are the one that would be released if the individual opts for the "fight" option rather than the "flight" option.
Now, are we supposing that these pheromones will have a smell and it is that that our scent would predominantly smell of? Or are they an ingredient within the overall scent and that we create a "pleasing" scent that may smell mainly of pleasing but appropriate smells, such as leather or brick dust for example and that the pheromones that we isolate are undetectable and are there to trigger a behavioral response in the wearer or the people that the wearer comes into contact with?
I am talking to a fighter and friend of mine about organizing a two day shoot in London at my studio. We would have 4 bouts , with eight contestants all different forms of combat.
The shoot would be broadcast live on SHOWstudio and would I will film it and photograph it as-well .It would be crucial to have you there so we can be sure of getting the pheromones extracted immediately after the fight has taken place. Also you can stipulate exactly how you want the fighters prepared for each fight. For example should they be freshly showered and with no other scents on them at all?
I am looking at dates around the beginning of March, probably the first week.
Can you tell me when you would be free to come to London around then and also can you bring the "Headspace " technology to London or will the Tshirts have to go back to Berlin?
Anyway there are lots of other exciting ideas i have about the shoot but I will talk to you later.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Love,
Nick
---------------------------------
SORRRYYYY for the late respond! I was travelling.
First I wanted to discuss dates in London,
the rest will come today on a separate mail :-)
The ONLY time I could possibly make it to London could be 7th,8th,9th of
March and may be the 6th. Then only after Eastern ( mid April).
In case I manage to get the possibility to bring headspace, this also would
need time and organization,
So PLEASE give me some potential dates from your side ASAP11
All the very best!
Love
Sissel
By nick knight, 20:02 Sun 18 Jan 2009
Skinhead violence to fish markets - radical perfumiers are finding inspiration in the oddest places...
By Bethan Cole
Sunday, 18 January 2009
JUSTIN SMITH, IMAGE SOURCE
Making its mark: Wode is the first pigmented spray
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The high street may be awash with easy-on-the-nose perfumes, but a new wave of creatives are coming up with less conventional formulas that offer a refreshing alternative to the mainstream. The photographer Nick Knight, the artist Sissel Tolaas and fashion designers such as Boudicca and Gareth Pugh are just a few to have developed more confrontational scents, and the results are altering the world of perfumery for good.
In stark contrast to the hundreds of overtly commercial, crowd- pleasing fragrances on the market, these perfumes are an avant-garde statement of intent. Nor do they start life as a "We need to hit women aged 18-25"- type twinkle in a marketing man's eye: they are not aimed at any particular demographic and are rarely gender-specific.
Perhaps the first truly conceptual perfume was Comme des Garçons' Odeur 53, launched in 1998. The unisex fragrance billed itself as the first anti-perfume and was completely synthetic, composed of notes such as washing drying in the wind and dust on a light bulb. It was as much about the idea as the realisation: the smell of household appliances, static electricity and uncompromising modernity stood in stark opposition to the legions of scents conjuring nature, flowers, leaves and woods. Added to that, like Chanel No 5, it was an abstract scent designed to create a new olfactory sensation, rather than a simulacrum, designed to mimic the existing smell of a single flower.
Ten years on, a new breed of innovator is trying to create similarly radical statements. Perhaps the most radical is Nick Knight's Violence, which he is working on with Tolaas. "I've created a lot of imagery for perfumes over the years," says Knight, "but most of them have a romantic vision, based on the past, with the same sort of ingredients – jasmine, rose or musk. The thing is, smell is enormously powerful and a lot of perfumes are bland. Yet smells associated with things such as car tyres are just as attractive to us."
The project began when the rarefied art and fashion magazine Visionaire asked Knight to describe the scent of one of his photos and he went back to his "skinhead" series, photographed in the early-1980s, which brought the smell of the sun on the bricks in Brick Lane, of sweat, boot polish and Indian food to mind. "It was a moment of violence," he recalls. "It was the smell of violence."
Knight's intent is not to condone aggression, merely recreate its scent and explore it. "I'm one for realism. In life you want to see or smell things that aren't pretty too. There is lots of imagery to do with violence in our lives. We are obsessed with violence. Nearly all of our pop culture is based on it." To create the scent, Knight has asked professional fighters to wear T-shirts during their pugilistic encounters, then send them to Tolaas to analyse and extract scent. He is writing a blog on Showstudio about the creation of the fragrance, exposing and detailing each step in its evolution to lay bare and deconstruct the mystical process. It is set to be marketed and launched on the website as the very first internet perfume; a limited run of bottles will be produced.
Violence, like Odeur 53, is a perfume that acknowledges we might take pleasure in the most unlikely or taboo smells; a draught of creosote evaporating off a fence, or petrol splashed on the floor as we fill up our car might be just as alluring as... well, Chanel's Allure.
Boudicca's Wode, perhaps the most truly groundbreaking recent fragrance launch, has traversed to the illicit and taboo, including notes of opium and poisonous hemlock. Moreover, Wode lives up to its name and is the first pigmented perfume spray: the cobalt vapour colours the skin blue then disappears without a trace. "The paint dissolves through some chemical combinations – it's the magic of science," say the Boudicca designers Brian Kirkby and Zoe Broach. "Queen Boudicca's tribe would mark themselves as warriors. The markings, the coloration, would have been associated with bravery, courage, status, virility, fertility and heroism." If it is possible for a perfume to transmit avant-garde principles, then Wode comes very close to it, with innovations of colour and intimations of illegality.
Before this year, it was rare for young, conceptual designers to venture into the realm of scent. The fashion brands that dominate perfumery are often the corporate monoliths. But now, the Six Scents project curated by Joseph Quartana of Seven New York, has enabled cult names such as Gareth Pugh, Bernhard Wilhelm, Preen and Alexandre Herchcovitch to collaborate with innovative noses and create their own perfumes.
Pugh's Diagonal, designed in cahoots with Emilie Copperman, is as sculptural as his fashion. "It's a struggle between lightness and darkness," Pugh claims. Indeed there is something quixotic and multifaceted about this scent. In one breath you get dessicated coconut and fig; in another citrus. Then comes the Elizabethan odour of clove. Other ingredients include dill, black pepper, nutmeg and black tea. "Emilie chose notes that don't necessarily sit well together but cause an interesting friction," explains Pugh. "It's quite unisex, resulting in an all-encompassing effect."
Meanwhile, the "celebrity" perfume is taking a new direction too, as figures beyond the normal paparazzi-fodder types turn their hand to fragrance. Hotly anticipated is the collaboration between Comme des Garçons and Daphne Guinness, the aristocratic socialite whose unique haute-couture style promises to translate into an equally unusual sensory proposition.
So now there is a wealth of choice for those predisposed to the radical. Not least the new, seven-strong range by perfumier Mark Buxton, who, being responsible for the spicy and resolutely ahead of its time Comme 2, has acquired a cult following as an industry iconoclast. The new range, coming to Britain this year, relates to colours and impressions he's had when travelling: English Breakfast, for example, recalls Japanese fish markets at 4.30am. "I didn't make any compromises," explains Buxton. "Often my perfumes are very different, but they still have to smell good."
The definition of what smells good, though, is clearly evolving from the traditional notions of rose and jasmine and musk, as perfumes' new conceptualists broaden the parameters of the odours we want to wear to include some surprisingly stimulating things.
Wode by Boudicca is available at Browns (www.brownsfashion.com). Gareth Pugh's Diagonal is available at B Store (020 7734 6846, www.bstorelondon.com); and Mark Buxton's range is available at Colette (www.colette.fr). Violence is a work in progress, and will be available from www. showstudio.com. Daphne Guinness's scent will be available at Dover Street Market this spring (www.doverstreetmarket.com)
By nick knight, 12:01 Thu 18 Dec 2008
Dear Sissel,
yes I received it this morning as I was leaving the house.I had a quick smell. Interesting.A lot of chemical smell which I guess is some sort of solvent.
Under that was a bit sweaty man. Old and a bit unpleasant and musty.I didn't detect anything dangerous yet.Do you think the fighters should be clean before they start?
Tell me what did you think? What did you think I should smell.
Love
Nick
____________________________________________________________________
Dear Nick,
Let me describe how I precented the first sweat:
I think the person who "fought" - " " meaning I think he was too
programmed/too intellectual prepared for the fight. He was TOO clean
beforehand, kind of fresh from the shower. I could hardly smell ANY sweat,
and the headspace hardly able to identify any molecules. I could kind of
smell some chemical, which I identified as having to do with clothes worn
before fighting. These cloths were rather synthetic......
Also I think he was fighting without passion - producing no adrenaline.
The small amount of smell that came over was pretty dull and contained very
little/hardly any information!
I think the second one is already much better.......in process these days!!
It is VERY important that the "fighters" do not "overclean" themselves
before fighting. Also I think that the more professional they get the less
"REAL" sweat they produce.
Nick I do not know on behalf of which criteria you choose the fighters, and
what kind of "rules" you are able to give them in advance?!
I think we seriously have to discuss these topis before the next fights
otherwise we might end up with very littel - for our intentions -
information = smells to work with.
I am sure we will find a way, this is just the beginning.
The impossible is nothing!
Headspace Images will take time, due to IFF Crises!!! SORRRYYYY! But we will
have them in the end, I HOPE!!!!
All the very best
Love
Sissel
By nick knight, 12:32 Mon 08 Dec 2008
Subject: Fragrance Violence - wholesale inquiry
Hi Nick
I am inquiring about your upcoming Fragrance, Violence.
Are you offering it for wholesale?
We are a specialy boutique in Hollywood, specializing in rare, artisan
perfumes from around the world. Our store, Scent Bar, has been open for 3
years, in response to our popular website, luckyscent.com, now going on 8
years.
I would love to learn more and see if you can perhaps send a sample for
evaluation.
Also, I can help organize a shipment with our shipping company.
Best regards,
Franco Wright
Co founder
By nick knight, 11:20 Wed 05 Nov 2008
Hello ,
Your polite young assistant popped round with the T-shirts for the Scent of Violence
project this evening . He took a few pics of me ( none of them charming due to the subject matter ) .
This is the one I feel is most apposite .
I hope you approve.
SF x
By nick knight, 10:28 Wed 05 Nov 2008
Dear Kev,
I have just sent you an email regarding a perfume bottle.
It is part of an ongoing project on SHOWstudio and for this I am
producing a blog/diary following every step of producing this scent.
I would like to put your response to my email on SHOWstudio, would
that be ok?
Nick
______________________________________________________________
Hi Nick
We can make a prototype of the perfume bottle, I would suggest the most cost
effective route would be to use a rapid prototyping (3D Printing) method
known as SLA this is a liquid polymer cured with an Ultra Violet laser.
SLA is very similar to clear Perspex.
The first things we need to establish are as follows.
1) The fist, female or male? The best route would be to take a cast of a
real person making a fist using dental alginate and plaster and then scan
it.
2) The outer shape of the bottle, you specified 2.5 inches square, am I to
assume the outer shape is pure 2.5 inch cube?
3) The cap, is the cap to form part of the entire outer shape? Or is it to
be a different shape? A quick sketch of what you envisage would be a good
place to start.
4) What size would you expect the fist to outer shape relationship to be?
I.e. small fist with lots of wall thickness, large fist with thin wall
thickness, again a quick sketch would be a good idea or we could prepare the
fist and produce some renders with the fist different sizes within the cube
for you to decide the inner outer size relationship.
5) Does the cap need to be removed and the bottle fully functional?
6) Do you expect to be able to put liquid in the bottle? If so it may need
to be a coloured water as a real perfume may affect the acrylic because it
contains alcohol.
If you want it to be made in actual glass then I would suggest you deduct
the SLA cost and talk to someone like Swarovski or Saint Goban.
Saint Goban are a Parisian glass company that make perfume bottles for most
of the known perfume companies as well as a huge percentage of Europe's
glass.
http://www.saint-gobain.co.uk/
Approximate costs.
Initial 3d concept model and renders. L300:00
Casting the fist.
Assuming you send someone to me to use for the cast. L250:00
Scan the fist.
L350:00
3d model the bottle.
Assuming it has a screw cap and will be fully functional. L350:00
SLA model of the Bottle.
Very approximate we can only get an accurate price when the 3d model is
ready to send to the RP Company.
L550:00
Total
L1800:00
Yes it is fine to blog it.
Regards
Kev Stenning
By nick knight, 16:18 Wed 29 Oct 2008
violencefight_comp2.flv
Last night my friend Tristan asked one of the boxers at the gym where he trains to wear the Tshirt as he fought. I asked him to record the fight on video. The Tshirt was put in a sealed plastic bag and will be in Berlin by Thursday for Sissel to start working on extracting the different chemicals that are in it.
By nick knight, 13:46 Wed 22 Oct 2008
The first of the T-shirts for the fighters has arrived from Berlin. Sealed in its plastic bag, it is now just waiting for the date of Ryan's fight.
By nick knight, 19:20 Thu 16 Oct 2008
Dear Sissel,
I was just wondering, once i send you back the Tshirt, what exactly are the next steps? How long before we have our first results?
I enjoyed being able to post your link to the Evil lecture ,if you have any other reference material please send it through and i will post it on the process blog.
I am looking forward to receiving the first tshirt. Do we have to credit Zimmerli?
love,
Nick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Nick!!! YES I am very happy to have started!!
As soon as the shirts arrive they will be analyzed, formula made and step by
step sampling of the smells.
What we have to discuss is if we are going to produce a serie of smells =
one from each person OR if we in the end, when we have all - choose only
one?! WE should discuss this ASAP
PS. YES Zimmerli should be with their Logo on our webpage!!!! I promised
them. I sent Charlotte the wesite from Zimmerlin, where you can find the
logo.
By nick knight, 09:57 Tue 14 Oct 2008
Hi there, sweatshirts go out today, with instructions etc. - to Sweden and
UK.
SisselX
By nick knight, 07:40 Fri 10 Oct 2008
Dear Nick thought this talk is quite interesting, may be to put the link on
the blog.
"How ordinary people becomes Monsters.....or Heroes" - Philip Zimbardo:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil
.html
SXXX
-----------------------------------
Sissel Tolaas
By nick knight, 20:35 Thu 02 Oct 2008
Dear Frank,
I hope you don't mind me contacting you but I am writing as I believe you know people who take part in cage fights/ ''fight club" type
fights. I am looking for a fighter that would be willing to wear a t-shirt during the fight and would not mind me using that t-shirt to extract the chemicals from his sweat to create the basis for a perfume. I would need to have a video of the fight but I will not be intending to see the persons face or reveal their identity. I would need your fighter to send back the t-shirt in a sealed plastic bag that i would supply.
This is an experimental project and to be honest I have no idea wether I will sell one bottle or a thousand. If you are okay to enter into this we should clear up money right at the beginning as I would hate it if you or your fighter felt unfairly treated. My feeling is we could come o some arrangement based on the eventuality of this becoming a commercial venture we could defer your fee until we knew what money, if any was to be made.
Finally I am certainly not wishing you to break the law or indeed I would only want to be involved if both fighters are undertaking this willingly and without any coercion.I very much hope we can make this happen.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Nick
---------------------------------------------------
Nick!
Send me the t-shirt. when do you need it back?
I will fix so the identeties dosent show in the video but I would
probobly have to pay the fighters something upfront. let me know what is
possible
I know u wont fuck me over.
By nick knight, 09:38 Wed 01 Oct 2008
Dear Sissel,
How are you? I hope you have seen that the project blog is open.
I have contacted Frank in Sweden who has agreed to organize a fight
and I have contacted someone who boxes for the English team who I
think will do it too.
I will put out a general note on SHOWstudio and see what response we
get. I know we only need a few but I would like enough of a choice to
take the best ones.
I am asking anybody who takes part to film the actual fight if
possible. I don't know what I will do with the footage yet but I
would like to have proof that they actually fought in the tshirt.
How do we proceed? It might be best if you send me the tshirts in
their sealed bags and I send them on to the fighters with
instructions and get them to return them back to me with their video.
Then I courier the tshirt in its bag straight back to you in Berlin
for you to start your chemistry?
Anyway email me back your thoughts.
All the best
Nick
Dear Nick ,YES I got all and it looks GREAT!!! I am collecting some great
stuff I will send the next days. Also I am on the T-Shirts, and I agree the
best would be toT-Shirt in process ASAP as I have them I will pack them in Plastic bag with
a short instruction: TO USE!
And the process of RETURN.
And they should be send me ASAP after used, and I will immediate start the
tracking of the molecules etc. and slowly the making of the samples.
The exact process of work and also the act of receiving etc. I will document
and send you, also to be put on the blog , or what do you think?
I have found some interesting material/links on the topic of violence and
also one interesting talk on the topic of evil......what do you think shall
we also put these things on the blog = the process/the research/the search
etc.
Speak SOOONNNN!
Love
SisselX
By nick knight, 11:01 Tue 30 Sep 2008
Dear Simon,
I am creating a scent from the chemicals men release when they fight(!) and I wondered if that boxer friend of yours that modeled in the Brutality story would be interested. All he would have to do is wear a teeshirt when he next fights. Do you think you could approach him on my behalf?
Many thanks,
Nick
Hello ,No problem Nick , his name is **** and he boxes for England
I'll give him a call about it today , I'm sure he will oblige.
Is he the only one you want ? I have a number of other friends who also fight.
SF.
By nick knight, 15:46 Thu 25 Sep 2008
Dear Dorian, Ross, Paul, Alex and Greta,
As you know I would like to sell this Violence scent directly from our site. Can you indicate to me what the possibilities are. It might be just one bottle or 10 or thousands, there is just no way of telling.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
best
Nick.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello,
I think a big point of the fragrance is to develop, market and sell it online - this is the unique aspect.
However, the difficulty that immediately arises is that no-one can smell the fragrance online. Very basic, but fundamental. We should consider how we will go about getting samples of the fragrance out to potential customers or maybe if we are planning to feature it
I like the idea of the perfume being in a limited edition - maybe we could number each one individually with an initial run of 100? This would also give us the opportunity to send some out as gifts - we can gauge the response and see if the numbers should be increased with a second run, third run etc.
This is not my forte but that's my initial view on the matter of the 'hard sell'.
Best,
Alex
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Nick et al
Please excuse my 'dragon's den' knowledge of commerce and my over-simplified 'plan'.
I think if this is being done correctly then there should be a way of telling how many you would sell. You would not make 10,000 bottles of perfume if your research had shown you were only going to sell 10 because it was a very niche market.
So I think the first step is to speak to someone who knows the market, work out where the product will be advertised (I would suggest it needs to go further than SHOWstudio) and then we could look at some rough figures of projected sales/units.
Then we can decide how rigourous our e-commerce strategy needs to be.
For instance if there are only 100 bottles we could just set up a paypal account (or an ebay shop says paul) and handle the whole thing fairly stress free ourselves . However, if we have a lot of product stored in warehouses that need to be shipped globally then clearly we will have to involve outside agencies
My feeling is that a limited run of 100 is the way to go. It gets the scent out there and works as an easy way of getting press for SHOW. Then, if there is a demand, we look into mass production
ross:)
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Hi Nick,
That's quite a big question really. From my point of view we can skip the details of presenting the product on the website - we'll be doing that anyway as part of the project, though the branding and positioning of the product are of course a very important and complex thing, some of which I'm sure you have in hand, and some of which I'm sure is in process.
The technicalities of selling products online strongly depends on whether you are selling one item, or 1000, or however many. The complexity and cost of the system set up really depends on the amount that's going through, there is no point in using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. Setting up an ecommerce system for one product is likely to loose money, not make it, but if it's something that's going to have more products added to it then you may recoup the investment later.
The process of taking an order/transaction is quite straightforward, and there are lots of well laid out models and best practises for this
1) The Basket: We find out the quantity of the product a person wants.
2) The Checkout: We find out where they want to ship it to & take payment for the product.
3) The Processing: We receive the order, label, put postage on it and ship it.
The devil, as ever, is in the detail, and more importantly the scalability.
For one item it wouldn't be worth setting up on-line credit card processing facilities, for instance, and we may just have one large price for the item which takes into account packing and shipping costs to the rest of the world. The item could even be auctioned to the highest bidder. The payment could be taken via a method agreed with the purchaser, such as bank transfer/cheque/paypal.
For between one an 100 items it would be worth considering a simple payment system, such as PayPal, where overheads on each transaction are higher than some methods, but cheaper than setting up a Merchant account with a bank, and on-line clearing, and a checkout process on our site. However PayPal would not necessarily present the image for the product you want to have, it depends how you want to position it's brand. A customised checkout process and in-line credit card clearing would be a nice experience for the end user, and keep the whole thing more 'on brand'
For 100+ it is more likely worth investing in a customised checkout process. If we are shipping lots of items then we would need set this up, and to consider how ordered are processed and dispatched, global shipping costs and hanlding charges, how to handle fraudulent transactions, how monies are accounted, how items are packaged for shipping ( that could also reflect back to the actual product design for the container for the scent ), how to manage customer queries and missing/broken items, who takes the items to the post office (or if we get them picked up, or shipped via courier etc.). Working all these details out to be optimal is worthwhile to maximise profit on the product, and to simplify the handling of the orders.
A final choice is that you can pass handling the sales of the item entirely off to a third party, who will sell it on your behalf. This way we don't have as much control over the presentation and brand of the product, and a lot of the process becomes on of managing the relationship with the third party, and trying to get the appropriate presentation for your product in their context. This would be much like putting the item exclusively into any shop, like Dover Street or Liberties. You have the advantage (and disadvantage) of having the product amongst other items, in an environment where people are looking to purchase, but you will see return per unit, and won't have the presence within that shop. Generally new brands don't succeed very well on large product sites with many items on them, unless you put them across a number of different retailers : think Dover Street, Liberties and Selfridges, not just Dover Street.
There are of course many points in between all of these, but mostly these are driven by the brand qualities of the product you are selling, and of course: where the audience you want to sell your product to are shopping. Because SHOWstudio isn't a shop, or may not have that audience, you double the work in trying to sell your product in also trying to drive the right traffic to SHOWstudio. Equally putting the scent on a generic shopping site may devalue it's brand, and still miss it's target audience. So the place, in my opinion, to start is to research into the customer for the product and how to access them. thereafter the choices will become clearer.
I hope that's all of some help.
_d._
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