Smell and taste allow us to appreciate the only things we ever, truly, possess-our memories.
It is through retrieving them that we retain the full flavour of important lovers. I adore their unique aroma and the way it remains when they have showered and left. Sometimes, I’m lazy on a Sunday and I delay changing the crumpled sheets on my chaotic bed so I can prolong the enjoyment of their fragrant cotton; a rich mixture of my own scent and someone else’s.
There can be a surprising disconnect between raw, physical attraction and the deeper animal knowledge that can be found in the mix of pheromones that a new partner offers. It is quite normal to reject someone just because their smell is wrong. When it’s right, a personalised garment fulfils a real need for intellectual arousal. A t-shirt charged up with clean sweat and purchased perfume places it at the sensual centre and prolongs the remembered, physical pleasures.
I’m not alone in this. Smell fetishists agree that there is great value to bouquets experienced at the time and then enjoyed again later.Through smell we recall taste and through taste those hot, urgent moments that matter are always with us.
Photography by Fernando Gebbia
