Co-founder and perfume creator at Altra, Beckielou Brown founded the natural haute perfume house with a vision for conscious, responsible luxury. Her focus on natural ingredients and unexpected combinations transforms each fragrance into a subtly otherworldly experience. Committed to sustainability, Altra offers aluminum refill flasks that keep beauty both elegant and ethical. Between her time in the U.K. and New York, Whitewall caught up with Brown to uncover her favorite city haunts for a scent-inspired guide to NYC.
WHITEWALLER: Where is the best spot to find inspiration in New York?
BECKIELOU BROWN: The New York flower market on w 28th street, I love the abundance of plant life overflowing from the stores. It’s like a hidden oasis, you step inside and you’re surrounded by an overwhelming multitude of colours, textures and of course the scents — not necessarily typically “pretty” floral scents, but more the green, mulchy, earthy scents that emanate from these indoor jungles. Get there super early in the morning when they’re opening up, there’s something cool about the way you could be anywhere, it totally transports you, yet the hustle and chaos is distinctly New York.
WW: What’s the best off-the-beaten-path to see art in New York?
BB: Bitforms Gallery on Allen Street is always worth a visit for digital and new media art. They’ve been around for years and were ahead of their time in representing new technology artworks, but presented in a way that manages to feel tangible. I love the ephemeral nature of generative pieces, I can stand there forever getting lost in them. Olfactory Art Keller, it’s a tiny gallery in a former barbershop space hidden away in Chinatown that specializes in scent as an artistic medium – I feel this is an underrepresented art form and love that they’re shining a light on the aesthetic role of scent beyond perfumery.
WW: What is the best-kept secret in New York?
BB: I’m such a foody so no trip to New York is complete without visiting my favorite spots. I’m currently loving Sunday C&C eatery, a tiny unassuming hole-in-the-wall spot that serves up a seasonal rotating menu of vegan Colombian fusion food that’s unexpected and never disappoints.
The Best of New York According to Beckielou Brown:
1. Buy Flowers at the Flower District
Courtesy of Fifth Avenue Hotel.
The Flower District is located on West 28th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues and it stands as one of the most striking blocks in all of Manhattan. A walk down the street gives the passerby an incredible array of sights and smells, with shops and wholesalers lining the sidewalks with an amazing display of plants of all kinds. For the flower shopper, there is no better place to go to find exactly what you’re looking for. –Fifth Avenue Hotel
2. Explore the Exhibitions at Bitforms Gallery
Refik Anadol, Quantum, installation view, bitforms gallery, 2021.
Founded in November 2001, bitforms gallery represents established, mid-career, and emerging artists critically engaged with new technologies. Spanning the rich history of media art through its current developments, the gallery’s program offers an incisive perspective on the fields of digital, internet, time-based, and new media art forms. Supporting and advocating for the collection of ephemeral, time-based, and digital artworks since its founding, bitforms gallery artists are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Center for Art and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, among other institutions internationally. –Bitforms Gallery
3. Learn about Scent at Olfactory Art Keller
Courtesy of Olfactory Art Keller.
Olfactory Art Keller seeks to encourage artists working in all mediums to experiment with scents and perfumers to create scents as objects of aesthetic experience by providing a dedicated exhibition space for olfactory art in Manhattan. Our exhibitions aim to engage and educate the public about the potential and diversity of scent as an artistic medium. By presenting scented objects, olfactory experiences, and smell performances as well as works of multisensory art in which odor is essential, we hope to normalize the use of scents in contemporary art. Our ultimate goal is to preserve olfactory aesthetic experiences in our visuocentric digital world. –Olfactory Art Keller
