Andrea Maack: The Icelandic Visual Artist Who Turned Drawings into Fragrance

“I never intended to create a brand at the beginning. The idea emerged slowly and organically through a succession of exhibitions. What led me to work with scent was a series of exhibitions titled ‘The Ultimate Being.’ Initially, I only intended to make a single fragrance called SMART, or Smell Art. But after that first exhibition, I was completely hooked.”

— Andrea Maack, founder of the brand

Essential Information

Founded: 2009 (brand established) / officially launched in 2010
Founder: Andrea Maack
Official website: andreamaack.com
Based in: Reykjavík, Iceland

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

The Scent of the Sea and Memories of Chanel: A Girl Growing Up in Iceland

Andrea Maack was born in 1977 in Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland.
Her earliest memories, she says, are “the smell of the sea and the smell of snow on the Icelandic coast.” She recalls being able to distinguish snow from running water by smell, even though most people would say that water has no smell.
Her first perfume memory is equally vivid.

“I think it was probably Chanel Cristalle. There was no distinct perfume culture in Iceland when I was a child. But Cristalle was a fragrance that carried me, in my imagination, to Paris and to the life I dreamed of as a child.”

— Andrea Maack

Her passion for fashion was also strong from an early age. She moved to London in her early twenties and worked as a buyer for a fashion and jewelry company. She even considered enrolling in a fashion design degree program, but ultimately changed direction.

A Turn to Fine Art and the “Licorice” Boutique

In 2002, Maack returned to Iceland and began studying fine art at the academy in Reykjavík. It was a sudden change of direction that surprised even her.

“I was obsessed with fashion, but I thought fine art would give me a broader perspective. Still, when I first began studying art, I felt I had to break with fashion.”

— Andrea Maack, in an interview with RVK Ritual

Unable to give up fashion entirely, she opened a small alternative fashion boutique in that same year, 2002, called Lakkrisbudin, Icelandic for “Licorice Shop.” It introduced work by young designers who were then still unknown in Iceland, including Henrik Vibskov, Peter Jensen, Emma Cook, and Yazbukey.
She closed the shop in 2005 and earned a bachelor’s degree in fine art from the Iceland Academy of the Arts.

After graduating, she worked at the artist-run Living Art Museum and helped organize projects including the Sequences Real Time Art Festival.
In 2007, as part of her WOART (Workout Art) series, she presented dumbbell-shaped sculptures made through handworking and machining the solid-surface material HI-MACS, with intentionally incorrect weight markings.

The SMART Experiment: When Fragrance Became an Exhibition in 2008

In 2008, Maack received an opportunity for a solo exhibition. Around that time, she independently began considering ways to connect visual art and scent.
First, she bought a fragrance construction kit online, began training her nose on her own, and wrote down her recipes. At the same time, she started contacting perfumers, reportedly also approaching Le Labo (in Japanese).
Eventually, through perfume and cosmetics brand consultant Renaud Coutaudier, she met Marion Fabre, a young perfumer from Grasse, France. Maack has described Coutaudier this way:

“He is a true visionary when it comes to perfume. No idea is too outlandish for him. I like that attitude.”

— Andrea Maack

The rules were extremely simple. Maack mailed the exhibition concept and a single drawing to the perfumer. The perfumer would send back just one fragrance, with no variations whatsoever.
Then, one day before the exhibition, Maack smelled the fragrance that had arrived and recognized her concept within it: it smelled “white,” like a minimalist white exhibition space.

The exhibition that emerged from this process was SMART (Smell Art), held at Gallerí Ágúst as part of the 2008 Reykjavík Arts Festival.
The original drawing, black lines on a white background, was cut into 252 tester strips and “reassembled” on the gallery wall. Each strip was signed and numbered, and visitors could take one home from the wall. As they picked up the fragrance-sprayed strips one by one, the picture gradually disappeared.
The fragrance was overwhelmingly well received, but it was not commercially available: only four flacons, or bottles, existed.

CRAFT and SHARP: A Series of “Wearable Art”

Following SMART’s success, Maack continued her art experiments centered on fragrance.
For CRAFT (Couture Art), she worked with designer Cédric Rivrain, who had also worked with Dior, to create an enormous pencil drawing on thin white pattern paper and fashion it into an origami-like dress. The work took approximately 200 hours and was exhibited at the Reykjavík Art Museum in 2008.
SHARP (Shape Art) was presented at the Arnhem Mode Biennale in the Netherlands in May 2009.

A fragrance was created for each exhibition and distributed as a room spray or sample. These three works were made “not to be worn, but as a medium for art.”

A “Fake Perfume Shop”: The Birth of a Brand

After three successful exhibitions, Maack established the brand in 2009. The decisive turning point was an invitation to create the opening exhibition for a design gallery in central Reykjavík.

“The brand was born when I was invited to do the opening exhibition at a design gallery downtown. I decided to create an art installation called ‘Andrea Maack’s Fake Perfume Shop.’ I handmade 1,000 bottles and opened the ‘shop’ for six weeks. Wallpaper Magazine covered the exhibition, and afterward retailers from around the world contacted me wanting to stock a brand that existed only through that exhibition. The rest is history.”

— Andrea Maack

The exhibition was titled Eau de Parfum. SMART, CRAFT, and SHARP were presented as official fragrances and were also shown at the London Design Festival in August 2010.
During 2009–2010, Maack received arts grants from the Icelandic government and grants from the Aurora Design Foundation, which supports Icelandic designers and architects.
In 2011, she signed an agreement with niche perfume and cosmetics distributor Intertrade Europe and moved production to Italy. Her partner Gísli Sverrisson joined the business as managing director in 2012.

The brand is now sold in at least 22 countries and stocked by prestigious retailers including Liberty’s London, 10 Corso Como Seoul, Lane Crawford HK, and Excelsior Milano. Since 2017, Maack herself has again been based in Iceland, developing the Geopark Villa project on the Reykjanes Peninsula as a combined studio, showroom, and residence.

The Brand’s Commitments

Fragrance as Something “Linear”: A Visual Artist’s Philosophy

When Maack discusses fragrance-making, she invariably uses the vocabulary of a visual artist.

“Fragrance is linear: it travels across the skin and through the air. It is like handwriting moving across a page.”

— Andrea Maack

Her process involves allowing ideas to develop through drawings and scribbles without preconceptions, then passing them on as instructions to perfumers. Working together from the sketches and fragmentary ideas she sends, they translate her visual vision into scent.

“My process is unusual. From the beginning, the perfumes were not intended to be worn. But people love wearing them, and it is impossible, and a little insulting, to decide what consumers will like.”

— Andrea Maack

Her commitment to unisex fragrance is also deeply rooted.

“I do not like the idea that women or men should smell a certain way. You really never know what you will feel when you spray something.”

— Andrea Maack, in an interview with Wallpaper Magazine

Perfumers she has collaborated with include Alienore Massenet, Céline Ripert, Julien Rasquinet, and Céline Barel. The perfumer behind the first three works has not been officially disclosed; the collaboration with Marion Fabre is documented only in Parfumo’s detailed records.

Ingredients and Production: Organic Materials from IFF in Grasse

An uncompromising commitment to fragrance quality also lies at the brand’s heart. Natural ingredients account for 88–89% of all its fragrances, with 80% of those ingredients certified organic.
Materials are sourced from IFF (International Flavors & Fragrances) in Grasse, France. For environmental reasons, the remaining 11–12% of “non-natural ingredients” are used as substitutes for plants whose harvesting in nature would affect ecosystems.
The alcohol and water used as the base are both 100% organic and sourced from Iceland. All products are vegan, cruelty-free, gluten-free, and ethically sourced.

Bottles and Packaging: A Design Inspired by Obsidian Volcanic Rock

The bottle was designed by Milan-based architect Maddalena Casadei. Inspired by the black obsidian volcanic rocks found in the Icelandic highlands, it combines sculptural forms from nature with clean lines that fit comfortably in the hand. The bottles are manufactured by the long-established glassmaker Bormioli Luigi, based in Parma, Italy.

Graphic designer Tommaso Garner created the outer packaging, adapting Maack’s paintings into black-and-white designs that offer a visual experience of the fragrance’s inner world. In 2022, Stockholm-based designer Tobias Alvback joined the project, and the packaging was redesigned to be fully recyclable and plastic-free in collaboration with Swedish paper and packaging manufacturer Billerud.

In 2018, Wallpaper* Magazine selected Andrea Maack’s bottle as one of the “most innovative fragrance bottle designs.”

The Fragrance Lineup

The Original Trilogy: SMART, CRAFT, and SHARP

The brand began with three fragrances created without the intention that they would be worn. They later became commercially available, but their origins remain firmly in exhibition art.

• SMART: Short for “Smell Art.” The first creation, conceived as a “white fragrance” evoking a white exhibition space. It originated in the 2008 solo exhibition.
• CRAFT: Short for “Couture Art.” Created for the paper-dress exhibition that took 200 hours to make. Maack has described it as the fragrance to which she feels the strongest emotional connection.
• SHARP: Short for “Shape Art.” Created for the 2009 Arnhem Mode Biennale.

Key Early Works: Fragrances Born Directly from Drawings

• SILK (2011): Perfumer Julien Rasquinet. A tribute to hand-drawn silkscreen patterns and the fashion houses that make French silk scarves. Roman Polanski’s film Rosemary’s Baby is cited as an inspiration.
• DARK (2011): Also by Julien Rasquinet. Inspired by female serial killers and extreme historical beauty practices.
• COAL (2012): Perfumer Richard Ibanez. Created from a charcoal drawing. “I wanted to capture the mineral quality of coal as a scent,” Maack says. It reportedly had the longest development period of her works to that point.
• COVEN (2013): Perfumer Céline Ripert. Top notes: vanilla, labdanum, whiskey / heart notes: cedarwood, oakmoss / base notes: galbanum, clove. Inspired by horror films and a collection Hedi Slimane created for Yves Saint Laurent, it reportedly took a year to develop. Although Maack herself said, “I thought nobody would like such a strange green fragrance,” it became the brand’s most popular creation. “With Coven, I wanted to bring people closer to nature, for people living in big cities who long for greenery, for nature. That is part of the Icelander in me: I learned to keep going through the darkness during months with little sunlight. Coven is the fragrance that gets me through those dark months.” — Andrea Maack

Recent Collections: An Expanding World

Since 2016, the collection has broadened to embrace an even more diverse range of inspirations.

• SOFT TENSION (2016): Perfumer Alienore Massenet. Freesia, moss, maté, and musk evoke the sensation of drifting through white mist.
• DUAL (2016): Also by Alienore Massenet. Inspired by Iceland’s hot-spring lagoon culture, this composition combines ginger, lemon, cedarwood, and dry amber.
• BIRCH: Inspired by memories of Maack’s family cabin. Its world evokes “a mountain cabin hidden in the Arctic tundra, with a campfire burning beneath the midnight sun.”
• SOLSTICE (2023): Perfumer Julien Rasquinet. A fruity floral described as “summer in a bottle,” composed around watermelon and white flowers.
• LIGHTSOURCE: A tribute to 1990s rave culture, with a spicy, citrusy aroma.
• PAVILION: A rich composition combining honeyed rose, praline, and oud. Perfumer Julien Rasquinet.
• SUPERNOVA: A spicy oriental built around the theme of a celestial explosion.
• ZING (2025): Perfumer Céline Barel. A citrus extrait with tangerine, mandarin, carrot, and ginger.
• MUSE (2025): A creation that attracted attention as the brand’s first fully fledged floral.

The brand currently focuses on two concentrations, eau de parfum and extrait de parfum, with approximately 15–17 fragrances available on the official website at any given time.

By the Way…

• If Maack could save just one fragrance from her collection? “Probably CRAFT, because I have an emotional connection to the 200-hour process of making that dress.”
• Her first perfume memory is Chanel Cristalle. To a young girl in Iceland, that scent embodied her longing for Paris. Later, Maack’s personal taste in perfume was reportedly influenced by fragrances from Comme des Garçons (in Japanese) and Balenciaga (in Japanese).
• A single article in Wallpaper Magazine brought the brand to international attention. It covered the “fake perfume shop,” which at the time existed only as an art installation.
• Maack feels a sense of mission as “Iceland’s first perfume brand” and takes pride in paving the way for the brands that follow.
• She reportedly limits authorized retailing in Reykjavík to a single store, Madison Ilmhús, staffed by highly knowledgeable specialists. This appears to be a deliberate choice to maintain the quality of the brand experience.