Naomi Goodsir

Naomi Goodsir trained in fashion in Sydney before apprenticing with a designer who had been a protégé of Elsa Schiaparelli, work that led her into couture millinery — she spent more than a decade making elaborate headpieces before turning to perfume. She later moved to Paris and began collaborating with perfumers on her own fragrance line, launching in 2012 with two scents developed with noses Bertrand Duchaufour and Julien Rasquinet, who trained under Pierre Bourdon.

Her debut fragrance, Bois d'Ascèse, created with Rasquinet, was built as a tribute to Goodsir's own childhood: the scent draws on her memory of her first workshop in Australia, a disused wooden church nestled in the hills of New South Wales where she used to light wood fires, and nods to her family's Scottish heritage. It combines tobacco and whisky notes with Somalian incense, cade wood, amber and cistus labdanum. Her fragrances continue to be produced and hand-packed in Grasse, France.

The house has been recognized within niche perfumery — Bois d'Ascèse was named among '111 perfumes to smell before you die,' and the brand won Best Niche & Independent Brand Fragrance at France's 2018 FIFI Awards.