Ulla Johnson’s recent launch of Ulla, her new fragrance category, is a study in mastering the art of the extension. It takes devoted followers of the designer and her aesthetic into a new world beauty via Eau de Parfums, candles, and incense – powerfully enhancing her brand’s DNA.
Johnson is beloved for her handmade details and commitment to artisanal traditions, and Ulla speaks to this ethos powerfully. Crafted by British perfumer Lyn Harris and developed with French perfume house Robertet, the scents evoke the natural world.
“Scent to me represents not just memory but the very essence of one’s self, what remains in the moment you lean in to kiss a cheek, what lingers in the air behind you, marking your place in space,” the CFDA member said. “It tells the story of the delicate alchemical dance between notes drawn from the earth and the nature of your being, a combination that could only ever be yours. It will stay in the hearts and minds of those who know you both intimately and in passing and conjure you forever.”
The collection includes three Eau de Parfums – Drift Rose, Baroque Garden, Adriatic Gold – delivered in a gently curved glass inspired by 19th-century Chinese snuff bottles. Its cap, made from organic porcelain, was created by LA-based ceramic artist Jonathan Yamakami.
“The market is flooded with so many scents, so it was very important to me that we enter this category in a way that felt looked and smelled uniquely our own,” Johnson noted. “I wanted it to be very personal. Scent becomes part of the very fiber of your being, more than a scent it is a feeling you move through the world with, and that touches everyone you touch.”
The collection also includes four candle scents in handmade ceramic vessels, also designed by Yamakami, featuring an inner glazed vessel.
A flower-shaped incense holder, designed by Brooklyn ceramic artist Jane Yang-D’Haene, is hand-crafed in porcelain. The incense was made by a 400-year-old Japanese incense manufacturer.
The prices range from $55 for incense to $240 for the incense holder.
“The brand has always been about lifestyle, and creating a whole world, about travel, about fantasy, about something transportive, about meeting and taking our woman through all of her myriad lives, so in a way fragrance is a natural progression of that proposition,” Johnson offered. “One of my many passions is interiors and home, and introducing a candle and incense felt very in line with our brand codes.”
