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Tobba
TOBBA, THE NICHE PERFUMERY OF A HONG KONG PAINTER
JASPER LI AND ADRIAN YU FOUND TOBBA IN HONG KONG IN 2021
Jasper Li is first and foremost a painter. An introspective, exposed painter who one day finds his mother's vintage perfume collection and wonders if a canvas and a bottle can tell the same thing. Adrian Yucomes from the luxury trade: fashion buyer for Lane Crawford and Harvey Nichols, he knows what department stores expect from a brand. Together, they founded Tobba in Hong Kong in 2021, with a rule that still holds: each perfume is thought of as a total work, Li's visual and the composition respond to each other, and the juices are made in France.
The house comes out with six eau de parfum and stands out quickly: in 2023, Harvey Nichols opens its doors to it exclusively in the United Kingdom, and the critic Persolaise, one of the most listened to voices in niche perfumery, devotes an entire episode to it. Rare, for a two-year-old brand born outside of Europe.
INDOLENCE, OMBRE VERTE, SERENDIPITY: THE PERFUMES TOBBA
Ombre Verte is the easiest to understand: a green woody note, grapefruit at the top, Haiti vetiver and Italian cypress in the heart — the shade of a tree in midsummer, cool and earthy. Serendipity is the most surprising: spicy, almost angry flowers, which settle little by little on a creamy sandalwood - Persolaise hears the improbable crossing of Black Orchid and Dries Van Noten of Frédéric Malle. Indolence plays the enveloping laziness, and the range is completed with Force, pine, myrrh and leather, Tendresse d'Automne and Rose on the Shore.
CLASSROOM, CHENPI PUER: THE CANDLES TOBBA
The candles extend the universe with more Asian themes: Chenpi Puer, named after the dried tangerine peel that is infused with pu-erh tea, and Classroom, the smell of a Hong Kong classroom, wood, chalk, paper. Two objects that say the city of origin better than the perfumes themselves.
WHERE TOBBA IN OUR SELECTION
It is one of the rare Asian houses in our niche perfumesdepartment, and the only one born from a painting workshop. Ombre Verte and Force join the woody perfumes, Serendipity and Rose on the Shore the florals. For another house that works on olfactory provocation from Asia, Borntostandout, from Seoul, is the natural comparison — noisier where Tobba remains pictorial.
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