That’s Not My Age

Kate Evans and Angela Flanders photo: Maya Glaser for We Wear Perfume

Not only is Kate Evans a talented fashion buyer and owner of Precious boutique (you may remember her from the This IS My Style shoot last year), she’s also the daughter of the late perfumer Angela Flanders. The first day of spring sees the launch of Lawn Kate’s first solo fragrance since inheriting the perfumery after her mother’s death, in 2016. ‘I felt that I would like to start a new series inspired by textures and textiles which celebrate some of our shared history and my childhood,’ Kate explains of her upbringing and Angela’s background in costume design, ‘Mum always loved the sensuality of fabrics. If she got her hands on a new lot of silk or velvet, she’d encourage me to touch and feel it. That’s how I learned.’

Kate Evans photographed by Annie Johnston

Set up in the1980s, Angela Flanders perfumery on Columbia Road is home to over-40 fragrances. Kate had been mulling over where to take the collection and revisiting Angela’s formulas when the perfect catalyst for Lawn pinged into her inbox. Writer Vicci Bentley (Our Vicci) had sent a poem, These gauzy mornings, ‘I thought the poem I’d already written might inspire Kate to make a green, uplifting, springlike scent,’ says Vicci, who had previously worked with Angela herself to create a perfume around another poem. ‘Kate had been thinking about creating scents inspired by textiles, and so lawn – with its dual meaning of fabric and the green stuff – is the first of what she hopes will be a new fabric-inspired range.’

Lawn perfume and These Gauzy Morning poem

‘I was very touched and loved the poem which struck a note with me,’ adds Kate, ‘somehow These gauzy mornings just conjured up the type of notes that I had in mind at the time. The idea of the dewiness of the lawn in the early morning and the petal falling on the grass inspired the use of green galbanum and earthy patchouli; the heart notes: jasmine and tuberose along with the lemon balm, add warmth. While the sharper lemon, bergamot and black pepper accord allude to the sharpness and freshness of a new day.’

Having worked with Angela Flanders in the early days when ‘the fledgling business was very hands-on’, Kate had never worked on her own perfume before and admits to finding the responsibility overwhelming at times, ‘Creating perfume on my own has been a steep learning curve. In the initial stages after mum died, I felt I had to do a kind of apprenticeship – I had a lot of re-learning to do. So for a year, eighteen months, I immersed myself in what we already had in the range. That time was really important to retrain my nose and understand how Angela put her perfumes together. I’m tremendously proud of what she did, but I didn’t want to be over-influenced by what we had in the range already. I wanted to come to it fresh, find my way, but I felt I had to be quite humble about it. I’ve inherited this incredible legacy and I want it to live on.’

The result is both a sensitive tribute and a new direction for the family perfume collection.

Vicci Bentley and Kate Evans at the Lawn perfume launch

These gauzy mornings by Vicci Bentley

there’s a reason why you push your bed pillow-close

to the open window so that the cool, the light

bathes you awake five o’clock and eager

to leave diseased dreams and watch

the calm, silver sheet of the

dawning lawn catch the

unhurried tumble of

a petal’s feather curl

for in the blink of that first, not-quite time

you still believe in the lightness of your footfall

stepping out onto the fresh, the wet

beneath your soles, between your toes;

inhaling silver, tasting green as

each liquid call in the chorus

trickles down to touch the

newness in you

until the truth of the day scorches through

The new perfume Lawn (named after the fabric, the notes in the fragrance and the poem) is available from 21 March 2018 HERE.