Dear Diane and Shaded Viewers,
AGONIST is the brainchild of Swedish designers Christine Gustafsson and Niclas Lydeen. Formed in 2008, their fragrance brand is focused on creating 100 percent natural fragrances inspired by Nordic culture. Presented in exceptionally handcrafted sculpture bottles and through art installations at events such as UNSCENT, their products are visually as they are olfactorily pleasing and give AGONIST its own unique sector in the niche perfume market.
Lydeen sat down to discuss the beauty of melancholy, multi-layered sensory experiences and the brand's latest fragrance creation…
I wanted to start off by talking about the founding of your company. Your fashion and visual arts backgrounds are quite unusual. How did this idea of doing fragrances come about?
It was when me and Christine met. She moved back from Paris where she did fashion for many years and I was working a lot with graphic design, packaging and art direction for various campaigns. We met and started to collaborate on this idea of how to
