WHAT WE DO IS SECRET: The Secretive Fragrance House That “Sculpts” Scent

WHAT WE DO IN PARIS IS SECRETの白い香水瓶と彫刻のアトリエで表現した、ワット ウィ ドゥ イズ シークレットの世界観。

“I am a minimalist. My approach is simple. I talk to perfumers, smell their ideas, and give them feedback.”
— Sacré Nobi (Nobi Shioya)

WHAT WE DO IS SECRET has a history that cannot be told through a single founding year. From S-Perfume to A Lab on Fire and then to its current name, it has continued through changes of name and organization. Several answers therefore overlap even in the question of when the brand began and who founded it. The key to following that path lies less in the founder’s private life or corporate ownership than in what a sculptor and perfumers created, and who carried it into the next era.

Basic Information

Brand: WHAT WE DO IS SECRET, abbreviated WWDIS

Established: The current brand began operating in the United States in 2021. The name itself had been used for an art studio and perfume blog since 2005, and its origins lie in S-Perfume, which began in Brooklyn, New York, in 2000. A Lab on Fire launched in 2011.

Founder / central figures: The starting point of the fragrance project was created by Sacré Nobi (Nobi Shioya), a Japanese sculptor active in New York. The official Japanese website also introduces the brand as a project by him and a group of perfumers. In the subsequent A Lab on Fire era, Carlos Kusubayashi came to the fore as founder and creative director. Distinguishing Nobi’s artistic foundation from the second phase of the brand launched by Kusubayashi makes this long story easier to follow.

Official website: https://wwd.is/

Official Japanese website: https://www.whatwedoissecret.jp/

Where it stands now: Having begun in New York, the project is looking toward Paris as its next stage. The brand’s chronology states that preparations are being made in 2026 to relocate from the United States to Paris. This describes a relocation plan, not an announcement giving a completion date or the address of a new base.

The Founder and the Brand’s Beginnings

Sculptor Nobi Shioya and Smell as a Material

The story of WHAT WE DO IS SECRET did not begin as a perfume company. At its center was Nobi Shioya, a sculptor who worked under several names, including Sacré Nobi. Interviews with him describe a life that began in the United States, followed by a move to Japan with his family during childhood and a return to the United States as an adult. Gaps remain concerning his schooling and the precise timing of these moves. Nevertheless, a life spent moving between Japan and the United States lies at its starting point.

In the 1990s, Nobi began incorporating fragrance into sculpture. In a later interview, he said that his first collaboration with a perfumer was in 1997, with Jean-Pierre Béthouart. The official archive also records Thierry Wasser’s work on Sugar Mountain 475.114 in 1999 and on several art scents from 2001 onward.

At this stage, fragrance was less a product for adorning the body than a sculptural material composing a space. Like clay or metal used to create visible mass, it was a material that, although invisible, filled space and stirred viewers’ memories and bodily responses. In understanding Nobi’s work, it is more accurate to see “smell, originally treated as a sculptural material, eventually becoming independent within a bottle” than to say “a sculptor turned to perfume.”

“The first time I worked with a perfumer for a sculpture was in 1997.”
— Sacré Nobi

In January 2003, /7S/ (Seven S), an olfactory installation on the Seven Deadly Sins created with seven perfumers, premiered in Cleveland, Ohio. The project succinctly demonstrates how Nobi treated established perfumers not simply as technicians working to commission, but as artists jointly creating a work.

That same year, 2003, Nobi conceived a gigantic shocking-pink heart to occupy the center of his gallery exhibition Plastic Garden. Commissioned from Sophia Grojsman to give it “the smell of love,” the result was 100% Love. According to Nobi, the work continued with repeated changes to its formula, and because the experience of creating it with Grojsman had been special, he wanted to keep it alive even in limited quantities.

2000: The Birth of S-Perfume

Alongside these experiments, S-Perfume began in March 2000 in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood. The official chronology describes its founder as “a surfboard shaper turned sculptor,” while contemporary introductory materials identify that person as Nobi Shioya.

Early S-Perfume was an unusual project for its time, connecting a small art studio with a network of prominent perfumers. On the sales side, an introduction by its former distribution partner recounts how Nobi packed small bottles into a duffel bag and visited serious surf shops in Southern California in person. The idea of bringing luxury perfume into surf culture rather than a department-store cosmetics floor already displayed an attitude that would continue in the later brand: “not making a luxury product look too much like a luxury product.”

In 2008, its name also entered the world of perfume criticism. In Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez’s Perfumes: The Guide, two of S-Perfume’s then three creations were reportedly rated five-star “masterpieces.” Presented by the brand as a milestone in its chronology, this assessment suggests that the small studio’s experiments were being appreciated for the appeal of the perfumes themselves.

Carlos Kusubayashi: A Second Axis

Carlos Kusubayashi, the next central figure in the brand’s story, was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and raised in Japan, according to its distributor at the time. He has recalled his childhood in Fukuoka in interviews. Because his father ran a small factory making screws and bolts, the smells that symbolized his childhood were “oil and steel.”

“Oil and steel. My father ran a small factory in Fukuoka making screws and bolts. I grew up surrounded by those smells.”
— Carlos Kusubayashi

After moving to New York, Kusubayashi worked as a part-time assistant in the studio of an artist who incorporated fragrance into sculpture. He also reportedly helped pack and ship perfume products there. That artist was Nobi Shioya. In another interview, Kusubayashi said, “Without Nobi, the only smells I liked would probably still be the oil and steel of my childhood.” His entry into fragrance lay both in the place where art was made and in the small parcels sent out from it.

The biography presented by the fragrance publication The Perfume Society also includes work in an automobile factory, an apprenticeship to a calligrapher, and activities introducing Asian art in Paris. Where did he work, when, and under which teacher did he study? The details of his path are not visible, but the account of moving among industry, calligraphy, and art reveals a person whose interests are not confined to fragrance.

2011: A Lab on Fire

Around 2009, Kusubayashi left S-Perfume and began preparing a line that would express his own sensibility, according to the distributor’s account at the time. In April 2011, A Lab on Fire debuted at the Paris concept store Colette. For the first three years, the perfumes sold in the store were made and designed exclusively for Colette, with each bottle produced individually; distribution then expanded across Europe and other regions.

The method established here was clear. Rather than employing an all-purpose perfumer of its own, the brand initiated projects with individual leading perfumers, including Olivier Polge, Dominique Ropion, Thierry Wasser, Sophia Grojsman, Carlos Benaïm, Maurice Roucel, and David Apel. The brand took responsibility for concept, words, images, and editing, acting as an “orchestrator” who brought each perfumer’s personality into olfactory form.

Kusubayashi said that the requirements for A Lab on Fire were that every fragrance must be refined, elegant, and possess a master’s touch. At the same time, he made the exterior practical and unassuming, relishing the contrast with the contents. Instead of explaining luxury directly through gold decoration or heavy bottles, the wearer would recognize the value only at the moment of spraying. This idea, which might be called “positive disguise,” translated the brand’s secretiveness into concrete design.

A Name That Already Existed

The name “WHAT WE DO IS SECRET” was not suddenly invented in 2021. According to the brand, inspired by the secrets inherent in perfumery, it had been used since 2005 as the art studio’s DBA, or business alias, and a perfume blog of the same name was subsequently established.

At once a closed statement, “what we do is secret,” the brand name also expresses an essential feature of perfume: a perfumer’s formula, the origins of materials, and the reasons a particular smell stirs an individual’s memories cannot be completely explained. Rather than merely using a lack of information as theatrical effect, the name embodies an acknowledgment that fragrance retains realms beyond full explanation.

2021: Returning to the Original Name

In its retrospective chronology, the brand divides its history into the A Lab on Fire era of 2011–2018 and the WHAT WE DO IS SECRET era from 2021 onward. It says that its activities had spread too widely over time, prompting a desire to return to the free, experimental spirit of the early days. It therefore launched WHAT WE DO IS SECRET in the United States, establishing a structure in which it could release limited-edition packaging and new creations at its own discretion.

S-Perfume ended in 2022, and its legacy passed to WHAT WE DO IS SECRET. Meanwhile, according to information on the official US website, A Lab on Fire operates outside the United States under licensing agreements, and the US-based WHAT WE DO IS SECRET does not control marketing, manufacturing, or distribution in those territories. This explains why the two names still appear side by side in some markets.

This is therefore not a one-time name change. The artistic parent project S-Perfume, the A Lab on Fire period with Kusubayashi in the foreground, and the current brand inheriting Nobi’s long practice overlap. Rather than constructing a continuous corporate timeline of capital and trademark transfers or making assumptions about Kusubayashi’s current role, it is easier to grasp the contours as a creative story moving among three eras.

What Defines the Brand

Giving Perfumers the Leading Role

The core of this brand lies less in a consistent proprietary “house style” than in an editorial approach to making that draws out each perfumer’s strengths. Nobi succinctly described his method as “talking to perfumers, smelling their ideas, and giving them my opinions.” Rather than prescribing every detail of a finished vision, the approach gives perfumers room to realize ideas that are difficult to try in their usual commercial commissions.

The range consequently spans transparent woody scents, dense vanilla musks, citrus gourmands of cola and macaron, and a creation centered on a single musk molecule. Its unity lies not in scent family but in the creative attitude of “not covering a great perfumer’s ideas with unnecessary explanation or decoration.”

A Restrained Exterior and Rich Contents

During the A Lab on Fire era, the distributor described its packaging as “emphasizing simplicity and industrial chic.” Kusubayashi also explicitly stated that he intended a contrast between refined contents and utilitarian packaging.

Today’s products inherit rectilinear bottles, predominantly white labels, and typography-led design. Of course, including limited editions, not every bottle in the brand’s history has looked the same. Before one traces designers, glassmakers, or the details of printing and manufacturing, what first meets the eye is a concise exterior that does not interfere with the fragrance’s character.

Materials and Manufacturing

The products are made in France. Japanese introductions emphasize the use of high-quality materials, and the brand describes all its products as vegan, containing no ingredients of animal origin. Here, too, one sees an approach that restrains flashy packaging while concentrating on what is inside the bottle.

Nevertheless, “high quality” and “small-batch production” do not automatically mean that every work shares the same detailed specifications. A single phrase cannot reveal the origins and producers of natural materials, sourcing standards, ratios of natural to synthetic ingredients, or the quantity made at a time. Precisely because this brand welcomes varied perfumers and materials, each fragrance’s composition should be considered on its own terms.

Giving Memories Concrete Form

Fragrance names and descriptions contain many concrete images: cities, photographs, weather, the feel of skin. Messy Sexy Just Rolled Out of Bed was inspired by a series of Marilyn Monroe photographs taken by Douglas Kirkland in Los Angeles on November 17, 1961. Paris*L.A. connects two cities through cola and macarons, while Je M’en Fous translates a moment in Santa Monica in June 1999 into scent.

Rather than beginning with an abstract “sense of luxury,” the brand establishes a scene and selects materials from there. A sculptor’s memories, the oil and steel of Kusubayashi’s childhood, bedroom light captured by a photographer: these perfumes become easier to understand as small sculptures giving contours to invisible memories.

The Fragrance Lineup

In Japan, the brand is presented primarily through 50 ml creations by several celebrated perfumers. Rather than arranging them hierarchically under fixed “collection names,” it is easier to organize them into two directions: finished perfumes with a strong narrative quality, and Monoscent, which foregrounds a single material.

Perfumes That Wear a Story

What We Do in Paris Is Secret
By Dominique Ropion. It moves from bergamot, honey, and lychee through Turkish rose, vanilla, and heliotrope into tonka bean, tolu balsam, sandalwood, ambergris, and musk. A representative creation anticipating the brand’s name, it introduces the brightness of fruit and rose into a warm, creamy oriental profile.

Messy Sexy Just Rolled Out of Bed
By Ropion. A floriental gourmand layering peach blossom and bergamot, Turkish rose and heliotrope, followed by musk, toffee, amber, blond woods, vanilla, and tonka bean. It translates the vulnerability and sensuality seen in photographs of Marilyn Monroe into milky sweetness and the warmth of skin.

Paris*L.A.
By Laurent Le Guernec. From the effervescence of lime, ginger, and a cola accord, it passes through neroli, coriander, and thyme before settling into a macaron accord, amber, and musk. A citrus gourmand connecting two American and French cities through familiar taste images of a drink and a pastry.

L’Anonyme
By Olivier Polge. With a relatively pared-back composition of bergamot, geranium, blond woods, white amber, and suede leather, it is described on the official Japanese website as “spiritual, minimalist.” The OP in its former name, L’Anonyme ou OP-1475-A, represents the perfumer’s initials, while the formula-number-like naming conveyed its laboratory origins.

A Blvd. Called Sunset
By Maurice Roucel. It depicts Los Angeles’s Sunset Boulevard through bergamot and almond, violet, jasmine, a leather accord, sandalwood, vanilla, and tonka bean. It shows how not only Paris but also West Coast light, dry air, and film culture have been important parts of the brand’s vocabulary.

Made in Heaven
By Pascal Gaurin. It moves from saffron, magnolia, and Italian mandarin into jasmine sambac, tuberose, and orange blossom, concluding with a cereal accord, orris, and vanilla. Layering memories suggestive of milk and grain over the sensuality of white flowers, it brings “purity” and “fleshiness” together.

And The World Is Yours
By Ropion. It uses neroli, cumin, orange blossom, Turkish rose, heliotrope, sandalwood, vanilla, tonka bean, and tolu balsam. The official page describes it as a 50 ml extrait de parfum made in France, constructing exuberant white flowers, spices, and powdery sweetness at high concentration.

Monoscent: A Single Molecule

Monoscent G is an alcoholic solution of Galaxolide S, an IFF captive molecule: a fragrance molecule held exclusively by a particular fragrance company. The brand suggests wearing it alone or layering it underneath another perfume.

Individual differences in smell perception are incorporated into the very concept of this creation. The official sales page explicitly states that some purchasers may be unable to perceive the scent. It is interesting that the fact “some people cannot smell it,” which might ordinarily be a commercial weakness, is foregrounded as evidence of fragrance’s dependence on an individual’s body.

Descriptions of Monoscent also vary according to the period of release and sales region. Past product names therefore do not necessarily overlap with the current lineup. Monoscent G, featured here, offers a way to encounter the single-molecule concept in a current product.

Incidentally…

More Than One Birthday for a Brand

Looking through retailers and perfume databases, one finds founding years for WHAT WE DO IS SECRET ranging from 2000 to 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2021. This does not necessarily mean that only one is wrong; accounts differ in whether “founding” refers to S-Perfume’s beginnings, the preparation or debut of A Lab on Fire, or the relaunch under the current name.

The relationship between Nobi and Kusubayashi is also difficult to contain within the single term “co-founders.” Nobi began the olfactory art and S-Perfume. Kusubayashi encountered the practical work of perfume in his studio and went on to lead A Lab on Fire. The project presented today on the official Japanese website once again places Nobi at its artistic center. Including contracts, trademarks, and current job titles in the same picture makes it complex, but the path along which the creative baton passed is visible through these two men’s journeys.

“Sculptures That Emit Fragrance”

The official Japanese website calls the products “sculptures that emit fragrance.” More than simply an advertising phrase, this is a brief summary of the work Nobi has been doing since the 1990s. The bottle serves as the exhibition space, the wearer’s skin as the place where the sculpture is installed, and the scent changing over time as the form of the work. Seen this way, the brand’s diverse olfactory profiles and the ascetic unity of its exteriors connect without contradiction.

References