MOTH and RABBIT PERFUMES: The Moment Cinema and Scent Meet

“An olfactory story is a translation into scent of a film scene and the emotion felt in that moment.”
— From the Moth and Rabbit official website​

Essential Information

• Founded: 2016
• Founders: Elke Filpes and Seong Nam Christian Choi Chevalier
• Based in: Berlin and Paris
• Official website: https://www.moth-rabbit.com
• Perfumer: Mark Buxton
• International presence: An exclusive, high-end network in fifteen countries worldwide​

The Founders and the Origins of the House

Seong Nam Christian Choi Chevalier

Seong Nam Christian Choi, co-founder of Moth and Rabbit and an artist in his own right, describes himself on Instagram as an “artist bridging East and West” who explores contemporary narratives.​

His personal website offers a more intimate disclosure.

“I view the world not in terms of a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, but as an atmospheric condition. That condition changes color, sensation, and the way memory moves through the body. My work emerges from this shifting climate.”
— Seong Nam Christian Choi, from his personal website​

These personal experiences can be seen as deeply connected to the themes of “transformation and emotion” underlying the house. Through painting, film, and scent, he explores “emotional states that refuse to be resolved,” and that sensibility is strongly reflected in Moth and Rabbit’s experimental direction.​

“Guided by the symbolic duality of the moth and the rabbit, light and darkness, sensitivity and endurance, the house explores how perfume can alter perception and reveal deeper layers of contemporary life.”
— Seong Nam Christian Choi, from his personal website​

An Inseparable History with Folie à Plusieurs

The story of Moth and Rabbit begins in Berlin in 2016. But to trace its roots, we must turn the clock back a little further, to another unconventional perfumery born in the same city in 2013.

Folie à Plusieurs. The French name, meaning “madness shared by several people,” is inspired by folie à deux, the psychiatric concept described in 1877 by French psychiatrists Charles Lasègue and Jean-Pierre Falret, in which a delusion passes from one patient to another and becomes shared.

Founder Kaya Sorhaindo was born on the Caribbean island of Antigua. Before entering the world of scent, he worked on numerous international niche magazines and art collaborations with Louis Vuitton at the New York creative agency The Meta Project.

“I came across Folie à Plusieurs, the idea of sharing a madness, and I thought – that’s it. Shared madness. Sharing a madness for perfumery.”
(When I encountered the concept of folie à plusieurs, I thought: this is it. Sharing madness. Sharing a madness for perfume.)
— Kaya Sorhaindo

Sorhaindo’s vision was simple and bold: during a film screening, a fragrance corresponding to a particular scene would diffuse through the room, bringing the audience’s senses together. Named Le Cinéma Olfactif, this film-and-perfume program began in 2014 at Soho House locations in Berlin, London, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo, Sion Sono’s Love Exposure, Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, and Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides: Mark Buxton composed olfactory “responses” to these landmarks of arthouse cinema. The rebellious perfumer behind Comme des Garçons’ first eau de parfum (1994) and Le Labo’s Vétiver 46 was an ideal accomplice in this undertaking.

“We never do any revisions. There’s no feedback from our side, so it’s the purest iteration.”
(We make no revisions at all. There is no feedback from us. That is what makes it the purest response.)
— Kaya Sorhaindo

What is notable is that the scents in this cinema series, while conceived as “fragrances for film,” were also offered as perfumes to wear on the skin. A small black box containing a 12 ml miniature bottle and a ceramic applicator was designed as a “memory box” of the screening experience, a device through which viewers could bring the sensations of that darkness back onto their skin after leaving the cinema.

The Birth of the House and Its Philosophy

Around 2016, however, a turning point arrived. Elke Filpes and Seongnam Christian Choi, who had worked on Folie à Plusieurs’s cinema series, were two artists deeply rooted in Berlin’s creative scene. With the larger ambition of “translating stories and emotions into olfactory products and experiences,” they established their own perfumery. That was Moth and Rabbit.

Some of the film perfumes born through Le Cinéma Olfactif, including Mood Indigo, Love Exposure, The Virgin Suicides, La Haine, Enter the Void, Blow Up, and The Lobster, would find a new life in the Moth and Rabbit collection. Mark Buxton remained the perfumer, and the fundamental philosophy of translating film into scent was inherited as well.

Meanwhile, far from disappearing under Sorhaindo, Folie à Plusieurs expanded. Moving beyond cinema as a single medium, its program broadened into olfactory responses to every kind of artistic expression: Haruki Murakami’s literature, including Kafka on the Shore; Sasha Waltz’s dance; Lea Colombo’s photography; and the architectural space of New York’s New Museum. As of 2026, it continues to operate as an intermedia perfumery with more than sixty-two fragrances. Its base has also moved from Berlin to New York.

It is often said that “Folie à Plusieurs was rebranded as Moth and Rabbit,” but that is not accurate. It would be truer to describe two independent stars emerging from a single creative field. Shared madness, folie, quite literally branched into several, plusieurs, paths.

At that branching point, Moth and Rabbit chose cinema as its frame of reference, and it has remained there ever since. Moth and rabbit: one drawn to light, the other sheltering in darkness. Within that duality, the dramaturgy of light and shadow inherent in cinema quietly lives on.

The House’s Commitments

The house champions the creation of meaning beyond simply “smelling good.”

“All of Moth and Rabbit’s work is about creating products with a deeper sense of meaning and value, helping human beings expand and providing access to a deeper understanding of our society and scent itself.”
— Moth and Rabbit official website​

To realize this vision, they established a collaboration with the legendary perfumer Mark Buxton. At the heart of the house lies a process in which works by “exceptional storytellers,” such as filmmakers and artists, are presented to the perfumer as inspirational briefs and translated into the language of smell.

The Philosophy of Creation: Experiencing a Film Through Smell

The defining feature that sets Moth and Rabbit apart from other niche perfume houses is that each fragrance begins with a film as its inspiration. Works by filmmakers and artists are presented as “creative briefs,” and Buxton translates the emotions he felt while watching the film into olfactory language.

The curated retailer Smell Stories describes the approach as follows.

“Olfactory stories that let you return to a film: its images, scenes, and emotional states.”
— Smell Stories​

This is fundamentally different from a conventional “licensed film fragrance.” Rather than a commercial product with a logo simply attached to it, this is an arthouse project seeking to translate the essential emotions of cinema into scent.

Stories Within the Packaging

Moth and Rabbit’s attention extends beyond the perfume itself. Even the ingredient labeling carries its own narrative. Ordinarily dry ingredient lists are transformed into “short wordplay” and printed on the bottle, giving the packaging a visual and narrative physicality. The motivation is that “ingredients once regarded as boring and ignored can become surprising when seen in a new context.”

Bottle Design

The bottles share a minimalist, predominantly black design, with the perfume names printed in translucent white. Described by the house itself as “a blank of luxury and irony,” the design removes excessive ornamentation to focus attention on the scent and its story.

A Commitment to Materials

All the perfumes are made using “the highest-quality materials available.” A distribution strategy restricted to an exclusive, high-end network in fifteen countries is also part of this premium positioning.

The Fragrance Collection

The Blind Vision Series

The Blind Vision Series forms the core of Moth and Rabbit. It is an ongoing, numbered series of unisex perfumes, each inspired by a film. As of 2025, the series runs from No. 1 to No. 15.

The films are selected from the “most challenging cinema” of the past sixty years. It is also interesting that the selection spans filmmakers with diverse cultural backgrounds and styles, including Michel Gondry, Takeshi Kitano, Lars von Trier, Bong Joon-ho, Luca Guadagnino, and Yorgos Lanthimos.​

The following lists the main fragrances and the films that inspired them:

No.	Fragrance	Film Inspiration	Director
1	MOOD INDIGO	Mood Indigo	Michel Gondry
2	LOVE EXPOSURE	Love Exposure	Sion Sono
3	DAISIES	Daisies	Věra Chytilová
5	LA HAINE	La Haine	Mathieu Kassovitz
6	BLOW UP	Blow-Up	Michelangelo Antonioni
7	ENTER THE VOID	Enter the Void	Gaspar Noé
8	THE LOBSTER	The Lobster	Yorgos Lanthimos
10	DOLLS	DOLLS	Takeshi Kitano
11	SINGLE MAN	A Single Man	Tom Ford
12	PARASITE	Parasite	Bong Joon-ho
13	MELANCHOLIA	Melancholia	Lars von Trier
14	THE COLOUR OF POMEGRANATE	The Color of Pomegranates	Sergei Parajanov
15	I AM LOVE	I AM LOVE	Luca Guadagnino

The Perfumer’s Language in Individual Creations

Mark Buxton reveals his process of translation through his comments on individual fragrances.

On No. 8 THE LOBSTER, inspired by Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2015 dystopian film:​

“I was inspired by the way this film was shot. I expressed the couple, the landscapes, the forest, and their emotions in this fragrance. Two people fall in love while being restricted from loving. Amid the cold, the wind, the damp wood, the lake, and the forest, they find warmth in their hearts.”
— Mark Buxton​

On No. 14 THE COLOUR OF POMEGRANATE, inspired by Sergei Parajanov’s poetic 1969 film:​

“White roses drift as though passing through the senses… The taste of ripe pomegranate lingers on the tongue, sweet yet bittersweet, a metaphor for the complexity of creative existence.”
— Mark Buxton​

On No. 15 I AM LOVE, inspired by Luca Guadagnino’s film I Am Love and released in 2025:​

“A brief meeting with a stranger, an encounter that seems innocent, leads to an unforgettable moment of joy and deep connection. A mouthful infused with sweet Italian orange, refreshing ginger, and citrat shatters a perfectly controlled, transparent, glassy sheen. Marble and glass grow old. The joy of life blossoms in a Milanese spring.”
— Mark Buxton​

An Additional Note…

The Symbolism of the Name: The pairing of a moth and a rabbit may seem curious at first, but it carries a deeper meaning. The moth symbolizes transformation as “a being that changes as it moves toward the light,” while the rabbit is a “symbol of rebirth.” These principles of “transformation and rebirth” determine how the house creates and communicates its fragrances.

“Guided by the symbolic duality of the moth and the rabbit, light and darkness, sensitivity and endurance, the house explores how perfume can alter perception and reveal deeper layers of contemporary life.”
— Founder Seong Nam Christian Choi, from his personal website​

Turning Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite into Scent: Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2020, was translated into fragrance as No. 12 PARASITE. The selection of a film with the complex theme of social inequality demonstrates that the house seeks to capture not just cinema’s visual impressions, but also its social and emotional messages in scent.​

Buxton’s Connection to a Television Game Show: The legendary German show Wetten, dass..? drew Buxton onto the path of perfumery. About twenty-five years later, its host, Frank Elstner, featured him as “person of the week” on another program. The story of Buxton appearing before the same presenter again, accompanied by footage of his younger self, suggests that life can come full circle in unexpected ways, much like the memory of a scent.​