Paper Passion Perfume for Booklovers

“The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world,” says Karl Lagerfeld.

It seems Lagerfeld’s sentiment (pun intended) inspired world-renowned publisher Gerhard Steidl to kick off this project.

Wallpaper* Magazine subsequently commissioned master perfumer Geza Schoen to create a fragrance based on the smell of books to be part of its Handmade exhibition in Milan.

The result, hidden inside the pages of a book, is Paper Passion perfume. The packaging concept is accompanied by text from Karl Lagerfeld, Günter Grass, Geza Schoen, and Tony Chambers.

“You have a book, you open it, there’s a bottle inside, and it smells of a book. It might be quirky, but the idea has a simplicity, a linearity,” explains Geza Schoen.

Steidl says that this is an opportunity to celebrate all the glorious sensuality of books, at a time when many in the industry are turning against them. The idea is that is should relax you, like when you read a book, to a level of meditation and concentration.

Paper Passion is slated for sale on May 30, 2012.