Who was Eris? In ancient Greek mythology, she was the goddess of discord, an immortal trouble-maker — the original disruptor. Uninvited to a wedding party and seeking revenge against the other immortals, she threw a golden apple inscribed “To the most beautiful” into their midst. When three goddesses fought over the apple, their rivalry led to a ten-year war. Watching this chaos, Eris may have had the last laugh.
Eris is also the muse for ERIS Parfums, a New York City-based independent fragrance house founded by Barbara Herman in 2016. Herman was one of the first-wave perfume bloggers in the 2000s, attracting fellow “perfumaniacs” at her site Yesterday’s Perfumes and eventually publishing a book about vintage perfumes, Scent and Subservion: Decoding a Century of Provocative Perfume (2013).
From the inception of ERIS, Herman has been working with Antoine Lie, a Master Perfumer with decades of experience and a notably independent, imaginative approach to fragrance. Although Herman and Lie are both inspired by the artistic risks and emotional power of great vintage perfumes, ERIS Parfums is a resolutely contemporary brand. Herman’s influences include art-house films, erotic literature, and all kinds of exuberant rebellion, from subversion of gender roles to vanguard perfumery that shrugs off stale conventions. Meeting her on this terrain, Lie brings his preference for unexpected contrasts and rarely used ingredients to his work for ERIS. The result is a collection of highly concentrated fragrances that evoke deep feelings and allow us to try on different aromatic identities.
From the original “Beauty and the Beast” trio of 2016 to its latest releases, ERIS fragrances have attracted a cult following and continue to lead us off the beaten path of mainstream perfumery. They push boundaries and encourage us to cultivate new memories and myths of our own. They are reminders of the magic that scent can bring to our lives.