The Land of Flowers

“People need things like perfume and poetry, music and art more than ever during times like this. People need to remember the simple joys in life. If you forget, if life loses its colour then they have won. Those cowardly, heartless bastards have won.”
― Kate Lord Brown, The Perfume Garden

In this episode we explore the House of James, a fragrance house that treats scent as a form of storytelling.

Founded by Justin James, a graphic designer from Somers, Victoria, House of James is all about pushing boundaries. What started as a quiet curiosity in department store fragrance aisles has grown into a bold, creative rebellion against the formulaic trends of mainstream perfumery.

Their first collection, Euroflections, was inspired by a European adventure — with scents like Sun King, Berlin NYE, and Rambla Del Mar capturing moments and memories in olfactory form. Since then, Justin has created deeply personal pieces like Tomorrow and La’Rita, and even a limited edition companion to Sun King called Athénaïs.

In this episode, we explore Justin’s journey from design to scent, and keeping perfumery alive as an art form — original, emotional, and deeply human.

Fragrances mentioned (all House of James):

Retrograde

Santoflor

Tomorrow

Rambla Del Mar

Tantomonta

Book mentioned:

The Perfume Garden - Kate Lord Brown

Find House of James on

Instagram: @houseofjamesau

Website: houseofjames.com.au

Theme music for the show was created by Raul Sanchez I Jorge. Check out his solo work on Wild Animal Records

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Paperback Perfumes! The host Clare Presser is a Librarian with a fascination for fragrances and their capacity to evokes memories and experiences through the activation of the olfactory system. In this podcast she chats with guests about their connections with scents and stories through the pairing of perfumes and literary texts. Think of it as reader’s advisory for fragrance lovers, or fragrance recommendation for bibilophiles - whichever experience is your first priority. It’s fun exercise that allows a lovely discussion around people’s personal interpretation of experience, scent, and story

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• No. of episodes: 53
• Latest episode: 2025-06-24
• Arts Books Fashion & Beauty

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