F  L  A  U  N  T

At 17, a young artist, whose obvious role might have been in front of the camera, fell in love with being behind it. Twice that young lifetime later, Lindsay Usich’s ethereal photography—which blends a haunting, dream-like nostalgia with the frequent femininity of its subjects—is represented by Los Angeles’ Louise Alexander Gallery. Alongside Usich’s artwork at Louise Alexander is also that of her idol, the iconic fashion photographer Guy Bourdin. Sharing this environment is Usich’s wildest dream come true.

“Guy is one of my biggest influences,” she tells Flaunt. “His photography is macabre and obscure in its own right, yet so beautiful and decadent at the same time since they’re fashion-centric. To say the very least, I’m honored to be in the same space that represents him.”

Bourdin is responsible for transforming the entire landscape of high-fashion editorials and ad campaigns with his provocative, hyper-real compositions that balanced visually stunning and simultaneously eerie narratives dating all the way back to the early ‘50s. And to this day, his works remain inimitable.

Usich is possessed with a similar passion for original, stylistic storytelling, and it was this mindful aesthetic met with circumstance that drew the Miami-native to the artform in her formative years. In the isolating months that accompanied statewide lockdowns, Usich channeled this original passion and picked up her much-loved 35mm film camera. The process saw her fatefully forge a new creative venture and addition to her arsenal: niche perfumery met with olfactive storytelling. 

Perfume as an artform seemingly bridges the gap borne out of a pandemic-riddled world where culture increasingly becomes more and more digitized. To formulate her intimate signature scent-in-the-making, Usich remotely joined forces with Brooklyn-based perfumer, poet, and now simpatico friend Marissa Zappas—who is classically trained at the Swiss fragrance behemoth Givaudan—from her Los Angeles home where she lives with life-partner Marilyn Manson (for whom she shot the Born Villain album cover, and various fashion, stage backdrops, merchandise, and intimate photos).

And make no mistake, Usich’s anticipated perfume, or better-yet, olfactive portrait, is so much more than just another niche perfume brand waiting to hit the market. It’s Usich’s culmination of personal musings on the past and present, intuitions, and a tale of awe-inspiring female-friendship centered on the scent-sational pair’s mutual affinity for unconventional women belonging to bygone eras.

“I sent Marissa a book on Marchesa Casati who was a crazy force of nature,” Usich shares. ”She had flaming red hair, would smudge her eyes with heavy black eyeliner, and walk a cheetah down the street in the ‘20s and ‘30s. She was a muse to Man Ray and many, many others. I believe Tilda Swinton did an entire shoot based on her for W Magazine. I found her story to be fascinating, and wondered what she smelled like back in the day. Marissa is reflecting her scent, along with my own memories, in my perfume.”

Other inspirations for the multidimensional fragrance include arcane literature and artworks by Alejandra Piznarik, Francis Picabia, Wisława Szymborska, and Andre Breton (to name a few)—all at the heart of the creative process of the perfume-making saga as Zappas, on the opposite coast, formulates accords out of her home-lab in a painstaking effort to encapsulate Usich’s unparalleled beauty and depth.

“Lindsay is so talented, multi-faceted and beautiful,” Zappas adds. “In the beginning, I was focused more on reflecting her olfactive sensibilities within the perfume in a more surface way, but of course over time, in getting to know her, the perfume also became more complex. I love how it's centered around black currant, which is a really fun note, but it can also be heavy and nostalgic. The best smells are a bit contradictory, like people."

Zappas has concocted niche smells for clients like Rachel Rabbit White, for her subversive book of erotic poetry entitled Porn Carnival, and California-based neo-Victorian fashion line, YMA (the fragrance is called Violette Hay). “I have a lot of clients who don’t want perfume made during the pandemic,” Zappas says. “They would rather not be reminded of this period in time. But, I’m so grateful for the scent I’m developing for Lindsay, because it’ll always remind me of how I felt supported when nothing was certain, and of all the creativity and hope that was shared between us.”

Olfactive artistry aside, Usich has spent much of the quarantine painting and photographing with Manson, and combining business efforts with her identical twin sister Ashley, in the Holiday capsule collection of her romantic ready-to-wear fashion line Cete which is also based in LA.

While we wait until spritzes of Usich’s elegiac perfume can waft in through our noses, and into our psyche as pretty much all other IRL artforms remain on pause, read below my conversation with Usich in which she delves deeper into photography, perfumery, and her coquettish fandom of David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.

I creeped your Insta handle, and you’re, like, the coolest person on the map.

I peeked at yours, too, last night, and I was like who is this girl, she’s so cute! I saw that you were really into David Lynch’s Wild at Heart which is one of my favorite movies in the entire world. Manson and I even have a kitten named Lula, and have thrown events that were Wild at Heart themed. Nic is a close friend who is endlessly fascinating. I love love love love love Wild at Heart.

I want to hear more about how you got your start with photography, and of course, your most recent foray into the highbrow world of perfumery.

I started dabbling with photography at a very young age, and you know, being in quarantine, the creative process has had its ups and downs, restrictions. I’ve been pondering a lot on how to adequately capture a moment in this time. Because, if anything, isolation has made me more nostalgic, and I was inspired to experiment with channeling my artistic expression into a perfume. I had taken a three year social media break (which was amazing). When I got back onto Instagram late November, I stumbled on Marissa's perfume, and thought her bottle—which had a surrealist aesthetic—was brilliant. I was instantly enamored so I DM’d her. And from there, we synchronously began exchanging poetry, songs, images, and the like, and she took all of the various elements I shared with her, and suggested bottling it into an olfactive story. That’s how the perfume materialized. We’ve been working on it ever since.

I feel that perfumes always have their own stories to tell, which is why it’s so important for a signature scent to be as personal as possible.

Exactly. It's so, so personal. I see it as a reflection of your memories—past, and present—and it also has to be wearable.

What are some of your go-to smells? In terms of notes, accords, and everything in between.

There’s so many. But usually, bergamot, black currant, and rose absolute are my top picks, to name a few.

Are you launching a collection of perfumes, or is it a standalone bottle?

It’s going to be a singular perfume, and I’m not quite sure if there will be a collection yet since the whole project is in its early, developmental stage.

What would you say is next in store for the fragrance? Have you thought about bringing the perfume to market, or did you want to keep it solely as an artistic expression, and not share it with the public since it’s so personal?

It is definitely an artistic expression, and extremely, extremely personal. However, I’m toying with the idea of eventually marketing it in some sort of fashion.

That’s so exciting, congratulations! So, The Guy Bourdin Estate represents your photography. When did you forge the relationship?

I’ve been a lifelong Guy Bourdin fan. When I was younger, I actually used to cut his photos from books and magazines, and put them inside my lucite purse, and carry them around telling people they were my work. The collaboration of my photography with the gallery is fairly new—about 5 months. Once Louise Alexander Gallery reopens in Porto Cervo after shuttering during the lockdown, I will begin exhibiting there.

Tell me more about your photography.

I shot most of the portraits when I lived in New York City. I think I mentioned this in a previous interview, but I would just stack books upon books, because I didn't have a tripod. New York City rent was so ridiculous, I worked three jobs to make ends meet. but I like to look back on those photos, and it might’ve been a very strange time for me, but those memories are near and dear to me and I’m encapsulating them in the perfume. It will be an earnest, heartfelt, soft yet strong perfume.