Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Costume Supervisor: Serene Liu

Concept Statement: The core of this project originates from a profound psychological void within the protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: his absolute lack of a personal odor—a metaphor for his non-existence in the physical world. Driven by this existential crisis, I pivoted my design focus to the three pivotal female characters in the narrative.

By meticulously analyzing the novel’s sensory descriptions of their distinct scents, I translated these ethereal olfactory identities into tangible, structural garments. This collection is a visual and tactile inquiry into a haunting question: What made these women so uniquely sublime that their invisible aura could pierce the consciousness of a monster, making them objects of fatal desire? Through fabric manipulation, I explore how odor manifests as an identity, and how fashion can give a physical silhouette to the unseen.