Provoking Perfumed Luck

Aucklander Isaac Sinclair is New Zealand’s sole perfumer and one of only 500 official perfumers worldwide. Sinclair, who grew up in Laingholm and Blockhouse Bay, trained in Milan and found his olfactory feet in Paris. He is currently contracted to the French office of a giant multi-national German company, but is based in Sao Paulo. If the South American capital sounds a strange place for a perfumer to be, then consider that Brazil has overtaken America in terms of perfume sales, with only Europe combined a bigger market. Accordingly, along with Paris and New York, Sao Paulo is a hub of fine fragrance making. Sinclair shuttles between the cities and in a year or so will likely return to France, but he is in no hurry, explaining that “being a perfumer is not a fast game”. Right now he is working on a soon-to-be launched fragrance for French designer Vanessa Bruno. He uses a French phrase to describe his career so far, putting his advance down to “la chance excite”, meaning he has provoked luck. “If I wasn’t from New Zealand I wouldn’t have had this chance.”