Stories & Collaborations

From a page, a stage or a place—to a scent.

PROUST beyond Seoul

60+ scent consulting projects, reported in PROUST’s 2026 company profile.

• Milan — HOMI: participation in the international lifestyle trade fair.
• Paris — Maison&Objet: scent planning for the Nouhaus booth.
• Hong Kong: participation in a wedding fair.
• Macau: fragrance exports.
• Japan — Daytona Park: an apparel collaboration featuring PROUST.
• Korea Tourism Organization, 2025: introduction in its tourism content.

Selected hospitality, automotive & local projects

Further work includes ibis Insadong, SPA AIPPO, a diffuser project for Kia’s EV subscription service, and Jongno-gu’s Cheonghyang Manri (청향만리) project. These join our publishing, exhibition, performance and brand scent work.

International activities and selected clients are drawn from PROUST’s 2026 company profile; each entry describes its own project role.

PROUST takes its name from Marcel Proust and the connection between scent and memory. Since 2015, our practice has grown to include literary scent projects, exhibition and performance work, and fragrances developed for brands and spaces, alongside personal perfume workshops.

Founder and perfumer Yumi Han studied physics. Her work draws on scientific thinking and the close reading of literature, beginning with a question: what might this story smell like?

These selected projects show some of the ways a story can take the form of fragrance.

Literature: Minumsa × Nouhaus

Literary fragrance and exhibition programming

In 2021, PROUST planned the literary scent exhibition 위로의 감각: 글을 향기로 말한다면 with Nouhaus and Minumsa. The project brought literature and scent into the same experience. Related literature-and-fragrance workshops followed at Nouhaus lounges in Daegu in 2022 and Itaewon in 2023.

The Minumsa literary fragrance series includes four interpretations:

• O. Henry’s The Last Leaf, with ivy green and fresh fruity notes.
• Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, with deep aquatic and rugged herbal notes.
• Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, with green notes, violet and rose.
• Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, with rose, vanilla and spice.

For publishers, bookshops and cultural spaces, this work provides a starting point for conversations about fragrance as a companion to reading.

Hospitality: Thoreau’s Cabin

A fragrance developed for Josun Hotel

PROUST developed 소로의 오두막, or Thoreau’s Cabin, for Josun Hotel. Drawing on Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, the project explored the atmosphere of a cabin through scent. The fragrance also became a diffuser for a Westin Josun Seoul package event in 2022.

It is one example of a literary idea becoming a fragrance associated with a place and a guest experience.

The fragrance’s notes include resin, eucalyptus, neroli and clove, evoking the wood of a cabin and the air of an autumn breeze.

Exhibition: Jinsan Gallery

Scent direction for 탈감각화, 2020

PROUST worked on scent direction for the exhibition 탈감각화 at Jinsan Gallery in December 2020. The project placed fragrance within an exhibition context, as another part of the visitor’s encounter with the work.

Our exhibition experience also includes projects at the multidisciplinary arts space Haenghwatang, including 예술로 목욕하는 날 and 후각적 발견.

Film and exhibition projects in 2025

PROUST developed scent for an archiving exhibition about the film PERFECT DAYS. Further exhibition projects in 2025 included 서묘국행 열차, 심연, pixel, 조각난 세계의 연결 at 몽상가들 혜화, and TTOS’s 지극히 사적인 시리즈.

These projects placed scent alongside visual work and its setting, with the approach shaped by each exhibition.

Performance: 몽상가들

Stage scent direction, 2020

In November 2020, PROUST worked on stage scent direction for the play 몽상가들. Bringing fragrance into a performance raises a different set of questions from making a perfume to wear: how it relates to a scene, the setting and the audience’s experience.

For a new production, we begin with the work and its practical setting, then discuss whether and how scent can contribute.

More recent performance-related projects include:

• 2025, music theatre production 캐롤: signature scent creation.
• 2026, play 나리: performance and signature scent development.
• 2026, play 구미호 식당: scent development for an exhibition collaboration associated with the production.

Signature scents for brands

Selected fragrance development projects include:

• Hanwha Life: CLOUD WALK.
• Coffee Bean: 아라비카 블루밍.
• Nouhaus: 지리산 and other fragrance work.
• Bodyfriend: 숲의 속삭임.
• THE RYE: signature fragrance development in 2025.
• HeyGround: Daybreak of Aspen, a scent for the space.
• FFAR: fragrance naming and concept work for an autumn/winter collection.

Each project starts from a different brief. For a new commission, we discuss the intended experience and product format before developing the fragrance direction.

Press and screen

National Geographic Traveller (UK) included PROUST in its 2026 coverage of South Korea’s beauty tourism. Read the article, published online on 14 April 2026 and in the Spa & Wellness Collection 2026.

PROUST’s perfume experience also appeared in episode 11 of Netflix’s 19/20 in 2023, in a 2024 video on SUNMI’s official YouTube channel interpreting her summer song trilogy through scent, and in a 2024 VisitSeoul TV experience with actor Kim Soo-ro.

Working with PROUST

We welcome enquiries from publishers, artists, performance producers, cultural organisations and brands interested in small fragrance productions or scent experiences. Share what you are making, how the scent would be used and your expected schedule.

Discuss a custom fragrance · Enquire about a workshop

Follow the atelier

Find recent workshop moments and fragrance projects on Instagram @proustscent, or browse our Korean journal on Naver.

Visiting Seoul? Make a perfume at our hanok atelier.