Somerset House has announced its major summer exhibition, PERFUME: A Sensory Through Contemporary Scent.

The multi-sensory show will begin with a brief overview of the origins of modern perfumery and an introduction to the historical innovators of the industry, from Chypre de Coty (1917) to CK One (1994).

The exhibition will then explore the modern fragrance movement, showcasing ten contemporary cult perfumes – and the pioneering perfumers who created them – that are challenging perceptions and shaking up our scent culture today, including Antoine Lie’s Sécretions Magnifiques  for État Libre D’Orange and Geza Schoen’s Molecule 01 for Escentric Molecules. Each perfume and its perfumer will have a dedicated space in the galleries so visitors can truly immerse themselves into the stories of the scents.

The exhibition will also feature a fully functioning perfume laboratory, where visitors can interact with and get instruction from professional perfumers, seeing up close the skill and science of the perfumer before turning their own hands to it.

An extensive events programme will accompany the exhibition, with details to be announced later this  spring.

Conceived and curated by Claire Catterall, Senior Curator at Somerset House, and co-curated by Lizzie Ostrom, aka Odette Toilette, , the exhibition will run from 21 June- 17 September 2017. Global beauty leader Coty and Peroni Nastro Azzurro will be principal partners of the exhibition, with additional support from fragrance house Givaudan. Visit www.somersethouse.org.uk for more information.