Jess Cole Pens Poem for Yasmin Sewell's Vyrao Fragrance

by SHOWstudio on 23 July 2021

Wellness brand Vyrao called on the model Cole and photographer Bolande Banjo to create a mini-campaign about Georgette, a rose fragrance infused with self-healing vibrations.

Wellness brand Vyrao called on the model Cole and photographer Bolande Banjo to create a mini-campaign about Georgette, a rose fragrance infused with self-healing vibrations.

Named after founder Yasmin Sewell's grandmother, Georgette is the rosiest of the scents by Vyrao, the wellness brand which launched earlier this year. One of five concotions formulated with positive vibes in mind, Georgette contains Turkish rose oil and promises to bring with it a little bit of grounded self-love. Sewell invited the model and poet Jess Cole to interpret the fragrance.

Jess Cole for Vyrao

Having launched with an animated CGI campaign by artist Michael Günther, an installation in Selfridges by Joel Bernstein, and recently invited creative minds such as Lea Colombo and Katie Burnett to photograph each fragrance, Vyrao asked Cole to dive deep into her take on Georgette. Each Vyrao fragrance is created with the intention of the wearer having a unique relationship to it; fragrance, after all, is one of the most subjective things in this life. Penning the poem Oh, Georgette, Cole's words can be applied to the liminality of both scent and lived experience. The third verse reads:

I’ll get you disappearing through misty diffusions
But know my essence is always freely-swirling, my illusions
I’ll make you no doubt
To dance in aroma
To waft in adventure
Where odours have the power of persuasion
And smell is a carrier of tiny molecules, all creation
And it goes beyond the boundaries of ourselves
Where we’re airborne and we’ll meet the air in parts, little cells Imbuing in, a phenomenal cloud

Describing the fragrance and resulting poem, Cole says: 'Georgette is inspiring because of this idea of ambiguity, and opacity. It’s a rose fragrance but it also has edge. It can be masculine or feminine. Not everything is clear, not everything is as it seems. I may appear to be androgynous, but I’ll let you have that. That was a really big part of the poem.' 

Cole also teamed up with photographer Bolande Banjo on a short film and series of images. Together, they escaped the confines of London to go off-grid on the Jurassic Coast in Devon. 'For me, because I have short hair, I’m often put in androgynous suits when I model, so I wanted to share and explore my femininity for Georgette', Cole explains. 'To make the Georgette film, we wanted to go back to simplicity. We stayed in an old bakery near a village called Beer in Devon. It had no internet, no phone reception, the loo was at the end of the garden, and all the light sockets for the house were by the back door.'

Bleached out by the British summer sun, with hues of warm yellows and oranges, shots subtly reference sweet smelling roses and the hot climates of Turkey from which the fragrance was part born. Overcast, grey fields behind white bungalows nod to the smoky, darker undertones in the fragrance, and to the multi-faceted nature of both Georgette and Cole.

Shop Georgette here.

Jess Cole for Vyrao

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