We have always created pattern with a story, based on strong concepts, personal stories and experiences, but when we approached this new project we had to ask ourselves – ‘what would our prints smell like?’

Initially we shortlisted a number of patterns from our back catalogue of wallpapers, and looked into the story behind the prints – to see if there was a natural progression into fragrance. The final four designs for the initial collection we settled on were Whitby, Pavilion, Darjeeling and Paisley Crescent.

Working with home fragrance experts KMI Brands helped us focus the fragrances and develop them to be more complex and have more depth. We also decided which colourway of pattern we should use for the packaging – so we also had to keep in mind what the colour may suggest for the aroma.

The finalised fragrances are:

Whitby – Sea Spray.
This was the first fragrance we concepted. We wanted to evoke a bracing walk along the seafront and so we created a fresh and uplifting ozonic aroma.To add a hint of the surrounding  clifftops and moors we added green notes  with hints of basil and moss.

Paisley Crescent – Eastern Orange Blossom
As we were using the popular Tangerine Dream colourway of our wallpaper for the packaging, we immediately knew it should have a citrus base, and selected orange blossom to have a light aroma. To reflect the eastern influence of the design we included Jasmine and cardamom.

Darjeeling – Tea and Fig
It would have been easy to create a Darjeeling tea candle and diffuser, but we wanted to create a more sophisticated complex scent – so we worked closely with the fragrance house to combine the tea with fresh green fig, and then added extra depth with spicy white pepper.

Pavilion – Gin Fizz
This was an interesting process to translate the pattern into a fragrance. As the pattern is a detail from our Festival wallpaper, which is an homage to the 1951 Festival of Britain, we wanted to create something that had a midcentury mood, and be relevant to the pattern. Again colour and story played a big part in the final decision for the fragrance.

We decided that being an abstract pattern, Pavilion could be a lot more conceptual and we could have fun with the story. We thought about what the experience would be for a visitor to the festival. We watched film clips of the event of couples dancing on the Southbank, under twinkling lights – and Mark immediately thought we should name it after a typically 1950s cocktail to capture the optimism and glamour of the festival.

Using the mustard yellow and grey colourway of the print, we decided it should be a cocktail which included lemon in the recipe, and Gin Fizz was the result. The fragrance is a cocktail of lemon and juniper berry and we added notes of fresh geranium to create the atmosphere of an outdoor party.

In addition to the candle range we have also developed a gift pack of miniature candles in all four fragrances. The gift box features a specially recoloured version of our popular Festival print – lending its name to the collection – Festival of Lights.

We are so proud to be working with the lovely people at KMI Brands, who have an excellent reputation for creating stylish and innovative products for brands such as Orla Kiely and Ted Baker.

The home fragrance collection includes scented candles and reed diffusers and are available from minimoderns.com, John Lewis and across the UK in independent home and gift shops.