The Perfumer Who Bottles Counterculture

Like sound, scent has the power to transport the wearer throughout time, space and memory.

For Johan Bergelin, the Swedish visual artist and perfumer behind the fragrance brand 19-69, sound cultivates scent throughout his collection of boundary-pushing olfactory tributes to the most iconic moments of counterculture in history. The freedom, creativity and music of the 1960s offer a recurring source of inspiration for the perfumer’s gender-neutral and adventurous concoctions.

Living up to the brand’s tagline of “bottling counterculture,” his scents draw influence from the likes of Jimi Hendrix and the legendary Woodstock music festival with fragrances such as “Purple Haze,” a patchouli and cannabis-infused tribute to the era, and “Rainbow Bar,” a vermouth and cardamom-layered nod to the notorious Sunset Strip hotspot of the same name.

Here, we speak to Bergelin about the similarities between sound and scent, the significance of the Sixties, and how a particular album inspired one of his latest releases.

Q. How would you describe 19-69 in your own words?

Real, authentic, and based on the transformation of music, art and culture [into perfumes].

Q. What do the Sixties mean to you and when did you first become aware of the era’s impact?

The late Sixties was really the starting point of a cultural earthquake, [where people were] determined to trash the old values of the previous generation. My father was a journalist, and many of my parents’ friends were academics, so that created an awareness in me of what was really going on from an early age.

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