Vienna - With his shaved head, tight jeans and fashionable sneakers, Alexander Lauber does not appear like the sort of person who would recreate a Vienna perfume in the fashion of the late 19th century. As the smell of coffee wafted across the traditional Cafe Sperl near Vienna's centre, Lauber explained how he created Klubwasser, the first perfume of his recently founded brand WienerBlut.
"I went to all used-book stores and worked through books for hours," the 37-year-old entrepreneur said.
After scouring books on housekeeping written for women, and an extended phase of testing with Yogesh Kumar, an Indian-born Vienna perfumer, he came up with Klubwasser, a modern version of handkerchief perfumes.
Popular in 19th-century Europe, these rather lush scents were not only dabbed on cloth and worn by women and men alike to smell nice, but also to protect themselves from foul odours.
It was a time when factory smokestacks and tens of thousands of draught horses mixed to form a special kind of aroma in the capital of the Habsburg empire, city historian Peter Payer said.
"The upper classes tried to avoid certain parts of town because of the way it smelled there," said Payer, the author of a book titled The Stench of Vienna.
Using natural essences of oakmoss, hay, cumin and coriander, Lauber's unisex Klubwasser evokes the Vienna woods outside of the city, where citizens went to escape the city's stuffy atmosphere and catch some fresh air. It is still a popular recreation area.
However, Lauber said he had to come up with something lighter than the old handkerchief perfume recipe he used as a basis. "One would not perceive it as a pleasant scent for wearing on the skin any more," he said about his historical template.
When asked about the reason for naming his label WienerBlut - Vienna blood - Lauber's answer made clear he is not stuck in the past when it comes to fashion.
The name is not based on the title of Johann Strauss' famous waltz, he explained, but on a song by Falco, an Austrian pop legend of the 1980s who carefully built his image as a rakish dandy.
In the future, Lauber plans to expand into the world of fashion by reviving handkerchiefs as accessories.
"It will be about moving away from this nostalgic touch," he said about his brand.
