Brendan Murdock, Anatomē

0:13Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. This time I speak with Brendan Murdoch, creative designer, entrepreneur and founder of Anatomy, a delightful London apothecary. We spoke about Anatomy's rebrand and also his new book, The Modern Apothecary. Brendan Murdoch, welcome back to Monaco Radio. It's great to have you here and you're our lovely neighbour as well. Lovely to see you. Thank you for having me. You're the founder, of course, of Anatomy, which is an incredible shop. I've been there. I've been a customer to the shop. First of all, Brandon, before we talk about your lovely book that is right in front of me, The Modern Apothecary, tell us about the brand, Anatomy.

0:51How is it faring? How's it doing? If you don't mind giving us an update, because I know there's been a lot of new products added and everything. I think we've really worked at consolidating the brand, because I created the brand just before COVID, in a sense, and we find ourselves doing a lot, I think. we're an apothecary so you're looking after emotional well-being physical health but we really dug into sleep as a kind of underpinning the brand and we built out our sleep range in 2023 so we've got these three amazing sensory point sleep oils and that really builds the conversation and sleep and builds out a collection within sleep and actually we'll come on to the conversation in a little bit we've created perfumes and so one of the things i decided to do as a brand was we pulled away from daytime essential oils and pipettes we pulled a little bit away from electric diffusers and we've really just focused on making product here in england really looking at the reality of how do you use fragrance and body and bath products to help you relax and nurture you and how do you scent your haven you scent your home and so that's pillars of well-being we've kind of focused in on and it was quite important for me to root the brand here in london more clearly and build from there.

2:10And I'm so glad you mentioned sleep because that's something that even when you're reading the newspapers, there's more and more articles about it. There's a certain anxiety about that. But you were there before. You knew that that's something that people care, I mean, right? Well, I think we stumbled on it in a way by accident because my perfumer who I've worked with before in other brands, she is an aromacologist and aromacology is about how scent structure impacts the brain, interacting with the neurons in the brain. And so the quality of the ingredients and the quality of the extracts affect the scent structure and affect what you smell.

2:49And so we created sleep oils and we had more weight pushed to the daytime oils. But actually, sleep is where the consumer was drawn because we live in a problem solution culture and people are like what's your problem what's the solution so the solution is not I want to express better the solution is I can't sleep and so we built out and we really began to realize with our own internal studies how people were sleeping better and that really even before I came I was late because I had a customer from Singapore then I had a customer from Salt Lake City then I had one from Paris and they were all coming in to get their sleep oils and we do a sleep supplement as well.

3:28And I was like, what is happening today? Where are these people coming from? And I'm sure they have a lot of questions about it. I've got to be very honest with you, Brendan, I do not sleep that well as well. I mean, I definitely need to actually pay a visit. Well, you were just saying you weren't eating breakfast. So, you know, I think we need to kind of do a whole plan for you. But yes, in terms of sleeping, it's something that I hear people in cafes now saying, did you sleep well last night when they were on their phone? It's not, how are you? It's actually part now of vocabulary that a lot of people are discovering.

3:58And it's interesting your company has five bases one of them is sleep, balance, movement, focus and diet but in a way I mean they're all kind of connected right I mean it's impossible to just divide them in five right? Yeah and I think that's something I did with Gabriel Vale who wrote the book with me and we really started to look at the pillars of well-being and well-being is not necessarily a new thing it's part of culture and history and we can go all the way back to before Christ and the Egyptians and the Romans. And we really feel it's important that people remember that. You can be well using an oil, you can sit in front of a Rothko and feel at peace, or you can be scaling a mountain.

4:42And all of that is about what well-being is for us. And it's not necessarily just building regimes in the home environment. It's engaging with the world around us. Absolutely. Well, let's talk about the book. But, you know, it's interesting that when I go to your website, there's a lot of interesting articles and interviews with people. So there is that interest about Anatomy just not being a company that only sells products. I mean, there is a connection there with the people. If you go to your website, there's so many interesting things to read. So it's almost natural that you have a book now.

5:13Yeah, I think a lot of when you're creating a brand, it's about your own interests. you know I've now I love the opera but I didn't love the opera when I started to go I find it quite hard work and some operas I can't sit through or developing your knowledge around contemporary art learning about movement and spaces and travel and I think a lot of those pieces are about making a brand relevant to the way that you live your life and trying to find pieces that you can emotionally connect with and I think being a brand today is so much more than selling product. And we're not influencers. We're not on social media directly in the way that other brands may be.

5:54So it's bringing some of that passion and clarity through. And that's something that Gabriel and I really work on is delivering that into the brand. Well, let's talk about the book, The Modern Apothecary. And there's also a little bit the history of it, the history of well-being. I think there's a lot of interesting information that this is not something new, that suddenly we all decided. It's incredible. It's since humanity started practically. Yeah I mean we're delving in in a light touch manner but it's really just making those connections and I think you know one of the things I grew up in Northern Ireland or the island of Ireland as we say today and when I came home from school I would go up the fields or I would be we're near the moor mountains and so being in the environment and being out in the world has been something that I guess is part of who I am and I also when I came to London I created a restaurant in Hoxton so I learned a lot in that restaurant environment about ingredients and about taste structure and then when you're in London you discover apothecaries such as D.R.

7:00Harris or when you're in Europe in Florence, Santa Maria Novella. So I think I've absorbed a lot of those elements and bringing that into the brand and then into the book, The Modern Apothecary. So I think Gabriel and I were really clear, how do we bring this to people just to whet their appetite and build a little bit of knowledge and connectivity to the past, but at the same time looking forward into the future. One of my favorite parts of the books, The Hero Botanicals, where you talk about the main ingredients you use, because I think I'm not the only one here, that people care what's inside the pill I'm taking or the perfume.

7:36I mean, using whatever products you're selling. I think that's a really interesting one as well. Yeah, and I think the land and the environment we are surrounded by extracts, whether it's native here to the UK or you're from Brazil, there's lots of traditions of family recipes and heritage and artisan history on ingredients. And so what we do in Anatomy is to pull those ingredients into formulations to support your well-being. And through the book, we're just highlighting some key botanicals. It's not an encyclopedia of an A to Z, but it's just to help people remember the power of nature and how it can support.

8:14And we find a lot of these botanicals do make their way into mainstream medicine. You may not look at a branded medical formulation and recognize that it contains a plant extract. And I think that's something that we all need to kind of be more aware of and be more connected with. When you look at the brand and you do, of course, you review the products, you know, we just mentioned that slip products, they're a big part of anatomy. But do you have to update? Do you feel like, oh, maybe people are not interested in that anymore? Because I would like to talk about your new selection of perfume, which I think is such an exciting addition.

8:48I think it's, yeah, to go back on your question, you update and you revisit formulations. And so you refine, like a good shirt or a well-made bag, you will make adjustments on this because within scent you're talking top middle bass notes and it's quite an art to create that top note that you initially engage with. So sleep is something you do every night so you use the oils every evening and we can regulate your behaviour with that. And I think that's where we found I wouldn't say a challenge in the brand but when we had six daytime oils they were in little pipettes much like our sleep oils. And it's not the way people wear perfume.

9:30So I was standing in Paris doing a pop-up and the French would be like, oh, you British, you really understand how to create parfum and you make it so clear better than we do. And they're like, but a pipette. And so this was in the spring of last year. And I thought, you know what, we're going to reformulate each of these blends and we will make them perfumes. and it's how I, you know, the reality is it's so much easier to get up and be on the go and spray a scent or to reach into your handbag or your personal carry-on and scent your space and so anatomy has to be relevant to your travel and to your movement and making it as easy as possible and so one thing I suppose I learnt is we were maybe making it too challenging we were like, oh god, this is a pipette and this is challenging to use and I was like, this needs to be easy to use and better.

10:22So that's why we created the fragrances. And we do have two of them here, right? Yes, I brought with me two scents for you. And no problem, we can spray in the studio. I think I like a little bit of a perfume as well. Well, I think I brought, firstly, expression because you're in the world of communication and everyone needs to communicate better in this world. So I'm spraying on the expression scent. And so it contains extracts all around about the coast. So it has sea moss, camphor, cypress. And so when I was in Café in Bordeaux and you come out of the pine trees onto the beach, there is that relationship when you just breathe and relax.

11:09And so we wanted to bring this in a modern way into the expression scent. so it's proving to be quite we're only quietly selling it but it's a hit already I had three people in today discovering it so we're all familiar with scents relating to the coast but we've gone a little bit further in creating this formula yeah the first thing that came to my mind was the sea actually even before you started yeah it's very fresh there's a certain freshness yes and also you feel better when you're at the sea you feel better next to a waterfall because of the molecules and the atoms from a crashing wave And so that's why we want to bring that in to people living in Shanghai or living even in London.

11:50It's a green city. But that is, for me, being quite an important approach to scent. Because you may want to express today, but we have something to help you focus. We have another formula to help balance. And what I want to do is you reach into your bathroom cabinet and you're taking the scent for what's relevant to what you're feeling. and that leans back into the work we did in the apothecary book is thinking about scent in a different way and you know at the end of the day perfume was all about sensorial pleasure in the last hundred years but actually scent was used in very specific directive ways and maybe with the perfume revolution of the 20th century we lost that somewhat and in the last ten years commercially you've seen some brands bringing in some naturals You know, there's wonderful brands we know within different houses, I guess, Delauder.

12:43And there's been a couple that are really kind of pushed the envelope. I think now is the time for people who are more educated on botanicals, more educated on scent and taking this a little bit further. Amazing. You have another one there. We have. So I have helped you express and communicate. And now we want to. Perfect for journalists. Yes. Now we're going to energize you with Fleur d 'Orange, Neroly. there's a little bit of tobacco backing it so my perfumer works with a very well-known tennis player on a couture level and he likes blossom citrus scents so she quietly was showing him our fragrances and what we wanted to do was often when you've got a cologne it can disappear so we pulled in a little bit of tobacco into the back of it and on the heat of your skin whether you're moving and performing, the scent will change.

13:36And one of the things I learned in the book, we talk about one of the first operas I saw, The Elixir of Love. A lot of opera singers and dancers, performers and sports people use scent to anchor them. So you could be entering a stadium and you have white noise in your ears and you're using a scent to help block out what's around you or a prima ballerina has a scent created for her at the Royal Opera. so scent has always been associated with performance and I think most people don't realise this this goes on in the background so it's something at Anatomy we want to introduce to people And are those perfumes available now or should be coming out soon?

14:16We're finishing our new website which goes live I think on Friday so it's going to be a much more immersive platform with video and more meaningful content and so alongside that we launch the perfumes on our own platform and then we'll start to introduce it to some of our partners globally. Excellent. Another interesting part of the book, Anatomy, I mean, it's well-being villains. I mean, I think people should know because it made me reflect. I think my problem, I just told you I don't sleep very well, is the screen time. That's the hard one, right? I mean, I need to read this. It's a challenging one.

14:51I think so. And when Gabriel Vale was writing it, he came to me and he was saying to Luke, we can't just be worthy all about well-being. You know, there are the reality of a greasy meal or a Netflix thing you just can't put down. And we need to recognize the well-being villains. We need to acknowledge it, but we need to kind of keep it in control. And with increased screen time and more compulsive viewing for longer periods of time, it's keeping things like televisions out of the bedroom completely it's disciplining into quiet mode and we're seeing an entire generation that's struggling with digital devices in quite darker periods, we can joke and laugh about it, so I think we want to keep things at arm's length at the end of the day you do want to wake up and say you're from Brazil, what was happening last night but keeping everything in check So we don't want to, at Anatomy, we want to be real and authentic about how we live our life.

15:57But you need to keep things aware. It's a bit like when you have a therapist, they say sometimes you know that that challenge is out there in the distance and be aware of it. But you don't necessarily need to pull it into the center of your being every day. And I think that's one of the things we need to be aware of. Brendan, I know you have a shop here close to us in Chilton Street. You also sell Selfridges. but you told me that there are people from Singapore from everywhere coming here specifically to visit the shop but do you have any international stockists? How do you think about the expansion of the brand?

16:29So we are really thinking more strategically now. I think the direct answer to your question is we're working with partners globally. So we launched in Australia with Mecca and they're essentially a store stroke distributor. They're like a really elevated version of Space NK here in the UK. We have a wonderful new partner in China that are starting to distribute the product principally digitally and then in some key stores. And that's been really interesting because on Redbook, they've started to show anatomy and the immediacy of digital engagement in China. The Chinese in London are coming into the store.

17:11And so distribution partners in America are really key. I think what I learned is not to try and do everything alone. And I was guilty of that. So having expertise, partners in different international markets. And then second to that, our own platform. And the much less focus, we are here in Marylebone. But we did have a couple of pop-up shops. And I learned quite quickly what we need to do is work inside other people's venues. So we're partnering with some airlines. We have hotel amenities. Airlines is perfect. It's such a great combo with anatomy, I think. We've spent the last... Let's see, we may have some interesting news soon.

17:53Yes, getting people to sleep in an aircraft, getting them to sleep in a badly ventilated bedroom. Often bedrooms aren't ventilated. Also getting you to move in gyms and movement spaces. So the fragrances we've been smelling today and our sleep oils, we've just partnered here in London with United Fitness Brands. So we're creating restorative yoga classes at TriYoga and we're bringing in the energy oils into some activating classes. And so I think I want to be relevant to the way we live our lives and what are the new palaces of relaxation or airlines or hotels, their gym spaces. People aren't necessarily shopping in the way that they used to.

18:35And so a brand has to work hard at connecting with people in other places. And that's what we're really doing with these partnerships globally. Amazing. Brendan Murdoch, thank you so much for coming in. Not at all, and thank you for having me. Great to see you.

18:57That was Brendan Murdoch, founder of Anatomy. His book, The Modern Apothecary, How to Harness the Power of Botanicals to Support Your Health and Improve Wellbeing, is out now. For more on the brand, go to anatomy.co. The show was edited by Flynn Simons and I am Fernando Pacheco. Thank you for listening.