Ode Ona and Born To Stand Out

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. Today's program is an Asia perfume special. First, we'll meet the founder of a new fragrance house from Hong Kong. We really look to the future and to see what you want to create out of that. So for example, when you get up in the morning, how do you want to feel today? And based on that, choose the scent that express yourself. And later, we'll hear from the creative director of an artistic perfumery from Seoul. We're not here to appeal to the crowd.

0:48We're not here to be a crowd pleaser. We are here to create fragrance with a strong opinion. My biggest fear is creating something that you have no opinion about. This is The Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards.

1:08You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Ruth Chow-vong-Girin is the founder and creative director of Odeona, a contemporary fragrance house based in Hong Kong. With a background in psychology and over a decade of experience in design, where she's earned industry recognition and awards, Ruth has long been interested in how aesthetics shape emotion. With Odeona, she brings that same approach to fragrance, exploring how scent can shape mood and support well-being in everyday life. Each fragrance is designed to smell good while also acting as a sensory tool, grounded in the idea that how we feel is something we can consciously influence.

1:49I caught up with Ruth to hear more about the venture, and I began by asking what motivated her to step away from a successful design career and launch a brand in an entirely new industry. So the road of branding and design is quite similar as if you're taking care of a baby, growing a baby for somebody and from the ground level to you know level 10 from logo to visual identity to packaging website you know you build this whole world you build this whole what I call a baby and you basically hand it over to somebody else to kind of continue the journey so imagine doing that for about 13-14 years never really having something of your own so actually Odeona has been a dream of mine for a very, very long time.

2:38And, you know, when I started five years ago, you know, brainstorming, starting on the branding and packaging design and everything, I really, you know, it was like a final step that I could take kind of culminating all my years of design into one project of my own or a baby of my own. It was amazing. And for the first time, I could really get to do things that are exactly how I see would be the good way to do it. But yeah, that was kind of how the journey of how we got here, basically. I love that. It's really beautiful. And as you said, there's something really, I don't know, poetic and symbolic, as you said, about having your baby at the start of this other journey as well.

3:22You mentioned packaging design. And before we get into talking about the fragrances themselves and some of the product range, just talk about the visual language. Because I mentioned, you know, I've got some of the products here in front of me and they're so beautiful. I don't know, you can probably hear I'm sort of opening and closing the boxes. And there's a really, I don't know, there's a beautiful hand feel as well as the look, obviously. How do you ensure you're bringing that rigor to bear on the products? Because when you're working for a client, they're your harshest critic, right? but when it's your own thing you're your own harshest critic did you find that difficult or as you said it was the culmination of this journey did it did it all work quite intuitively yes actually um you know we started with the branding always with the logo but in working on the packaging design i actually went through a lot of different vendors to see how i can do things the right way the right way being i'm hoping to build you know a business that is sustainable in the long run, and not just in terms of numbers, but in the way we, you know, do packaging.

4:25Because when I used to do designs for other clients, there's a limitation sometimes in choices in terms of, let's say we do recommend a recycled paper, it is more expensive. It is about 10-15%, sometimes even 20 % more expensive than regular paper. and it may not be the choice of everyone to maybe bear that cost. And, you know, when I started doing Odeona and designing for the packaging design, I tried to source different companies in terms of having something that's 100 % recycled paper. And, you know, traditionally when people think about recycled paper, you think of those craft kind of brownish looking paper.

5:06But actually, you know, there is a way to design a brand that's at the same time beautiful and looking chic, but also being environmentally sustainable as well. So we did that for all of our packaging. So all of our papers are 100 % recycled and recyclable. Same for our perfume caps. So when you click the bottle in, it's magnetic. But at the same time, the surface material that you see is made of 100 % post-consumer plastic. so you know it's how I hope that you know in producing many units of something that we're still being responsible in the way we approach things and I think that's what end up I hope being a very sustainable and you know responsible business that I hope other people would sort of appreciate as well because it takes time to I think do things right and just sourcing the material of the plastic actually to half a year itself, which is why the brand building process all in all took five years before we actually launched.

6:11I'm glad you asked that question because this is something that we don't really put in the forefront of our, let's say, website, or it's not even really on the packaging itself. There's just a very small line to have that shared. I appreciate this for us to be able to share them. And it's interesting because I think to the kind of consumers that you're interested in engaging with, that's the kind of intentionality, the inbuilt purpose that they are coming to expect from the brands that they like. And almost they don't want it shoved down their throat that there are these merits. They kind of assume that the brands that share their values deliver on that.

6:47And I think increasingly, let's hope, lots of brands operating in this space will do that. But it's great to see you leading the way. And I think you can really sort of see and sense and smell all of that endeavour that's gone over that half decade. Let's talk about the fragrances themselves, Ruth, because actually there's a similar kind of intentionality, right, that goes into this. It's all about wellbeing. It's about being crafted. It's about inclusivity, this kind of idea of something that resonates universally to everybody. When it came to the fragrances and working, I know you work with Emily Kopperman.

7:21Was that as difficult as sourcing the materials for the packaging because you had such a clear a vision in mind of what you wanted to do with this? Yes, actually, it was a beautiful experience with Emily. It was like magic. So time and time again, we just understand each other so well. And, you know, when we share a vision for the scent, you know, a mood board, the feeling, and maybe one or two key ingredients that we're hoping could be in the scent itself, Emily always comes up with something that is not only exactly how we're thinking, but somehow even better than we could imagine. It's just almost telepathic because the scent creation process actually happened during COVID.

8:05So we could only meet each other online and she would send us the scent via the post. So it could have been a very difficult process, but actually it was absolutely seamless and very, very enjoyable. I just felt super understood and it was just such a magical experience in itself. And so today, I still sometimes have goosebumps thinking about some of the, it's just because scent is such a difficult thing to describe, you know, especially from someone who's not, you know, I cannot name 50 ingredients just by smelling it, you know. So I really had to partner with a professional, someone who's really from this field and so knowledgeable, to help us bring these visions to life.

8:50Because the vision of Odeona itself is exactly as you said, it's all about intentionality. It's about how we infuse ingredients into creating the emotion of a scent. How do we bring this feeling to you when you smell this? and thankfully Emily is just, she gets us and you know she really brought everything to life for us. Yeah it's so personal fragrance and as you say scent, it's so powerfully that you know it taps into people's nostalgia, it can be the most evocative I think almost of all the senses and it's interesting that with the different fragrances that you've developed with Emily they're sort of described more about, I don't know, I don't know if this makes sense that that you sort of sell them more on how they make you feel than how they smell almost.

9:39Does that make sense? Exactly. Actually, you brought up a very interesting word, which is nostalgia. For us, you know, there's a lot of brands that focus on memories. And that, of course, comes from a place of nostalgia, thinking back to the past and what this reminds you of. Actually, Odeona is exactly the opposite of that. We really look to the future and to see what you want to create out of that. So for example, when you get up in the morning, how do you feel? How do you want to feel today? And based on that, choose the scent that express yourself. So for example, today we have this monocle recording.

10:15It is a big meeting, an important one. And let's say I want to feel more calm, cool, collected. I want to feel more confident today. It's one of those days where you almost want to wear a t-shirt to be comfortable and a leather jacket on top of it. And for that, we have our EverJet fragrance, which is a very deep, almost mysterious leather scent. But at the same time, we have the top notes that are citrus. So it also has Manakescan Mandarin, lemon. And with that citrus note, it actually brings a very light feeling to the leather and also mental acuity. So the base of it with the coca that gives you a very inner comfort, coupled with all these ingredients to bring about this feeling, it's exactly creating a world and a day where you can really feel how you want to feel, which is that calm confidence that you can really embody when you wear the scent.

11:16So yeah, this is just one example. But, you know, when we go through our fragrance collection, we actually have different ways of being, as we call it. So it's all about kind of reaching that state of mind where you can create for the future rather than looking back to the past. That's something that's, I think, makes Odeona a little bit different from other scents, I would say. No, I love that. And just whilst you were describing Everjet, because that's one, I have that here. So I had a little blast into the Monocle studio. So as you were describing it, I was enjoying the very fragrances you were describing.

11:49It was a sort of a smell-o-vision. I don't know. Sadly, our listeners will just have to use their imaginations. But I was able to actually immerse myself in the fragrance, which was great fun. Talk to me about the chaptering, Ruth, because you've got your chapter two, I think, released just, well, just a little bit earlier this year, right? And I love this idea of it speaks to the fact, the power of the storytelling that you've evoked in the brand, that you call this sort of collections chapters. But tell me a little bit about that process and that growth as the journey's continued. Chapter one is all about new beginnings.

12:22So in that collection, in that chapter, we have three fragrances, one of which is Everjet, the one that you have in front of you and the one we just talked about. That's the leather scent. We have two other scents, Carte Blanche, which is all about smoke sage, cleansing for a new beginning. and it has very interesting, warm, supportive notes of pine needle tea and sandalwood, for example, and a little bit of pepper. So imagine, you know, a rough day and, you know, you just want to cleanse the day away. It's such a warm, comfortable scent that feels like you're wearing a hug. So that's a second scent in chapter one.

13:01The third one is actually Dawn Earth and it's a moss and mastic scent with patchouli. it's all about feeling close to nature you know imagine taking a walk in the forest so that I initially thought about the ways of being that are kind of the base of how we would need or how we would like to be and to feel confident to feel cleansed you know renewed for a new beginning and also to feel grounded and safe I think those are kind of the starting points of our kind of conversation within this scent story or this journey of scents. And the newly launched chapter two that we just released this February is all about a next step of that.

13:48And for that, you know, we have Teapot Sonder, which has been surprisingly doing super well in the past week, actually. We just had some very interesting developments in stores. And this scent itself is quite interesting because it's a tea fragrance and it's hojicha. So hojicha is actually toasted green tea and has a very nutty, kind of woody, interesting scent to it that's a little bit unexpected. And just like holding that cup of tea with a kind of moment to yourself, it's all about appreciating the little things in life. And the other one that we have in Chapter 2 is Moon Kiss Rhapsody. Imagine a day just filled with errands or chores or things you just have to get through.

14:38One of those busy days, as you call it. And you just want to get through it with a very calm state of mind. This is a musky lavender scent. So lavender traditionally, you might think of what you put on the pillow to sleep. But we've developed something that's musky. It's a little bit different. Some people actually told me it smells almost like electric, magical. It feels a bit dreamy. and at the same time to make lavender unisex, because all of our scents are actually unisex, was something that was quite a feat as well. Quite an endeavor to make that happen, and we did. Because when you smell that, it's actually a very sophisticated, slightly more masculine scent than others as well.

15:20And the last one we have in chapter two is the scent of love. It is a floral scent that is also unisex, Something that we really try to do for all of our senses to make sure that it's something that's for everyone. And we have the orange flower, Angelica. We have just like love itself, the sweetness of vanilla with some spicy in there, with the ginger to keep things interesting. It's the scent of love. And it's all about feeling that not just for others, but for yourself as well. And those are our six ways of being. We have more in development right now already. And the next chapter will be all about celebrations.

16:03So I think when you asked us about this chapter notion, I think it's all about having these collections of different ways of being, essentially. Yeah, I love that idea. And I think, as you said, it really speaks to this idea of telling the story of a brand. And we know that that's so important in terms of how you become relevant and essential in the lives of your customers and your consumers as the business grows. And just to that point, what is the ambition? You touched briefly there on retail. In terms of how you want to continue to take this product to the world and interact with your customers, what's the vision, Ruth?

16:40Do you have a preferred strategy for that? Obviously, you're already in several big global markets, but what's the strategic framework that you're thinking of following as the business develops? I'm really hoping that we can not just be in stores, but to be able to tell a kind of unique storytelling so that what we're doing or the intentionality of the sense is more evident or more obvious. and one very nice chance for us to do so was in February when we had a fragrance art exhibition during the time of Essence in Milan. We showed our fragrances at Ten Corsu Como for that week and we got to really tell the story of the brand and very, very happy to meet a lot of the people who have followed us on Instagram and who were in Essence for the fragrance fair itself.

17:36you know it just feels like a culmination of many years of work to be able to meet and and see the people who are enjoying our creations so imagine creating something for five years and you kind of sometimes feel like you know you're in the in the hole you know you're just creating creating making making and just taking the time to do things right but to finally be able to bring out and for others to say that they get it, they like it. It's been, I think, one of the most moving experience that I've had. I couldn't actually be there in person. Next year, I would really love to because I was 31 weeks pregnant at that time.

18:17So actually, it was my husband, Levine, who went to Milan on my behalf. And of course, he's heard me talk about all these things, these scents and everything from many, many times before. So he already knows the brand really well and could represent us in a way that told our story in the best way possible. But yeah, I still look forward to the day to do that in person. Hopefully soon we have something planning like our own pop-up this year and it is a more immersive experience. So yeah, I look forward to continually kind of telling our story in new ways and artistic ways as well. That was Ruth Chao von Geeren, the creative director and founder of Ode Onar.

19:01and you can find out more about the business by heading to odeowner.com.

19:14You are listening to a special Asian fragrance edition of The Entrepreneurs, and it's off to Seoul next. Jun Lim is the founder and creative director of Born to Stand Out, a South Korean fragrance brand that launched in April 2022. A lifelong perfume enthusiast, Lim set out to challenge traditional ideas around scent. In just three years, the brand's grown rapidly and is now available in more than 60 countries. The entrepreneur's own Laura Kramer met Jun at a pop-up in London's Soho, marking the brand's official UK debut as it expands from niche retailers to department stores like Harrods and Selfridges.

19:54Jun speaks candidly about his personal experience growing up in Korea and how it shaped his creative direction. He began by sharing with Laura the philosophy behind the brand and why playing it safe was never an option. I was a fanatic of fragrance. You know, I've been a fragrance nerd all my life, ever since my teenage, like early teenage. That's when I've been collecting. I've been buying perfume at least one per week for the past 20 years. That's how much I was into it. And perfume and art, these two were my biggest obsessions. But my career, of course, was not in perfume. I was actually an investment banker specializing in cosmetics industry and retail industry.

20:39So that was my profession. And that's where my business expertise or acumen was relied upon. In late 2020, I was fired from my last job. and they gave me a big fat check as they laid me off, which gave me a foundation to start off my brand. I love that. And being a fan of art and being a fan of perfume, you obviously know the market very well, but what did you feel was missing from that world? And you're like, oh, this is a gap I could fill. I wasn't thinking of filling a white space. I was trying to create my own space because we are in a world. I mean, I called myself or I call my brand artistic perfumery.

21:20Art should be a self-expression. It's not about filling a gap. It's about expressing who you are, not minding other people's business, just doing your own thing. And that's what I want to replicate for our brand, Born to Stand Out. So navigating your own path, creating your path, I should say, not trying to take other people's lane necessarily. So then tell me about the inspiration behind the look, the creative direction for it. so it's a stark contrast it's very intuitive of white and red me coming from Korea of course I grew up in Europe and North America in my teenage but spent my 20's in Korea and it was difficult and I did not understand our people live a very conservative life, almost a predefined way of life and if you deviate slightest from it, people freak out and call you a loser.

22:18You are considered a failure. So you are almost living a life on autopilot. This is the lifestyle I wanted to break away from. So to reflect this value, how do I do it? So what is the element of the conservatism? And how do I visualize this? The value, the root of value that symbolizes the conservatism of Korea is called Confusionism, which is a very conservative idea, which is still the value that we live by and abide by, and that is reflected in white. And that's why all our artists, our conservative artistry is white. Like our postulans are white. Everything is white. And we even call ourselves the people of the white because we are extremely proud to be conservative.

23:06And at the same time, why did I use red? Because in our culture, red is the color of taboo. if you write your name or if you write the name of somebody you hate so much in red it becomes a curse so it is the forbidden color and hence I use the colorway of the conservatism and the taboo and that's how the visual representation or the visual direction was formed and even the bottles is a reinterpretation of the traditional Korean porcelains. It must be, I don't want to speak for you, but it must be difficult then to lean into that, given that's your culture, that's your background, that's how you grew up.

23:54How did you navigate that? Because surely there were people thinking, what are you doing? In Korea, yes, of course, in the beginning. I think in the beginning, there were a lot of uncertainties. We started in the middle of COVID. The niche perfume industry is still non-existent virtually. because I started from Korea. So it was a very dangerous venture. But I had a confidence in my direction. I loved perfume. I believed that my direction would work for somebody. We're not here to appeal to the crowd. We're not here to be a crowd pleaser. I will be very happy if there is just one person out of 100 people in the room that love our fragrance so much, they become ambassador themselves.

24:36And that's the type of perfumery that we are pursuing. we are here to work create fragrance with a strong opinion my biggest fear is creating something that you have no opinion about that's my direction and i had a firm belief about this and this is something that has worked successfully of course in the beginning i had fear this is something that has worked successfully and is i believe will continue to work and now we have almost like a cult following. And these fans are who I work for. When you did all this, what was the toughest part for you? Because you had the money, you had the idea, having been such a fan of perfume, having worked with in this industry.

25:21The biggest fear in the beginning was, am I really bringing something new to the perfume industry? That was my biggest fear, because I did not really, because I, frankly, I had money to survive otherwise, even if this fails and failure of the business was not something that I was much afraid of but am I really creating something that I'm proud of like right now I've been working for a couple of years and I have a more robust and more solid philosophy of my creative direction but in the beginning as the new creative you're lost am I really doing something creative so that was my biggest fear and sometimes now as well and I ask myself is this really creative as a brand calling ourselves artistic perfumery, that's my biggest fear.

26:06Not so much about commerciality, but about the artistry of the brand. I have a belief that somebody is going to love this. If I wanted to make this brand in a more commercial success, I would have approached the olfactive direction in a very appealing way, maybe more floral, more citruses, and less about crazy notes. Well, let's talk about that. What are the notes that you tend to go gravitate toward? What makes it stand out? Because it is born to stand out, isn't it? I don't like anything predefined. So, you know, when you go to perfumery school, you hear about purple, you hear about floral, you hear about citruses.

26:48I don't want to think about this because I feel like that is also limiting your creative freedom. Like, I don't want to think about, oh, is this, like, am I, even in my brief, Am I targeting floral woody? Am I targeting floral citrus? I don't even want to think about it. So my creative procedure is, without any limitation, always working with perfumers and asking them, are we really bringing something new to the table? We never think about what is the white space, but always creating our own space. And that is our basic philosophy. So if you see our fragrances, of course, you may see some fragrances that fit into the traditional profile, but you see a lot of fragrances that are like, what the hell is this?

27:30Like Angel's Powder, for instance, is like a very prominent nail polish, nail remover kind of scented or gasoline scented perfume. One of our best-stellers called Drunk Lovers is a heavy rum, cognac, red berries fragrance. One of our latest releases called Black Guava is a very fruity, but it's like rotten fruity fragrance. I always add this avant-garde element to my creations to make sure that it does not fit into the traditional category. Did I see black mango too? Black mango is also pungent, rotten mango. Well, let's talk about the product then. Where is it made? Where is it manufactured? So the oils itself, it's made in, of course, different places, Singapore, Switzerland, Germany, sometimes in France, across wherever, wherever there's a production plant.

28:21The compounding, that's where it's made. In terms of creative direction, I try to control it from Korea. I live in Paris. Of course, a lot of the big fragrance houses, their creative centers are often in Paris. but I travel to the Chinese creative centers, the Singapore creative centers, or even Dubai as well. So it's everywhere. I don't think there is geographic limitations that I place of where it's made or where it's thought. Because there's no limitation. It's just me and the perfumer. The bottles and everything are all the components and the juices are filled in Korea. Where then can people find it?