The Scent of Anticipation

Joya for Nike, Air Max Con 2016

Joya for Nike, Air Max Con 2016

Everyone knows the scent, even if they’ve never named it. Opening a box of fresh sneakers—the paper softly crackles, leather carries a faint sweetness, rubber a gentle sharpness. It’s anticipation made tangible, if only for a moment.

Nearly a decade ago Nike invited us into Air Max Con, their global celebration of sneaker culture, as part of a curated group known as Masters of Air. We weren’t there to replicate sneakers, but to distill what surrounds them—the emotion, the atmosphere, the memory. For us, that memory moved through leather. Not the material, but the impression it leaves. In fragrance, leather isn’t always leather. It’s warmth, grain, softness—built not from what’s there, but from what your mind recalls when scent and emotion meet.

Our founder Frederick Bouchardy offers a firsthand reflection:

"In 2016, through our friends at the excellent marketing and partnerships firm, Team Epiphany, Nike asked us to participate in their first Air Max Con. They invited a handful of designers, artists and experts in their field to create a space, activation and limited edition piece or edition—and called this handful “Masters of Air.”

Joya was the lone invitee involved in the arena of scent.

And so we set off to the evoke the familiar “new sneaker” experience, not (only) the specific materials used to make shoes or even the experience of unboxing, unfolding paper (We did consider those elements of the fragrance.)—but the feeling (anticipation, nostalgia) of receiving, opening and unveiling a pair of fresh kicks.

This is cheeky but high stakes, in a sense: Everyone knows the smell and is also likely to have their own (strong) opinion. We are exposing ourselves to hate mail, at least a derisive gotcha moment.

Once the project was confirmed, Martin Sombathy, our lead industrial designer, quickly got to work sculpting the initial prototype—to prepare for the silicone molds with plaster mother molds we will ultimately need to cast the special edition of scented wax sculptures using our proprietary tilt and cure process, which dissuades bubbles and undercuts in the final product.

We used a genuine Air Max 90 to get all the details—leather, gum, suede, lace, even the textures of the stitched label on the tongue—everything.

We learned that Nike only uses the left shoe for display, and—in turn—that we’d have to do the same.

We had less than a month to turn it around and only want to execute at a faithful and extremely high level. There were low lights and late nights involved.

Ultimately, on our shelves in the Joya shop-in-shop at Air Max Con 2016, we showed a deconstructed display of how the objects were made. And still people came up to the molded wax forms as though they were real shoes, delighted to ultimately handle and smell them, to scramble their own senses and expectations.

On the fragrance side, at the time we had an exceptional in-house perfumer, a young creator from Canada named Dana El Masri.

Dana’s style is modern, directional. Also, given the tight timing, the formulation would have to be especially uncomplicated—to ensure we could source and test all the materials properly.

Stuck on part of the scent that just wasn’t doing for us, one day my buddy, legendary perfumer Jean Claude Delville (genius and co-creator of Clinique Happy with genius and another legendary perfumer-friend, Rodrigo Flores Roux, almost 30 years ago) stopped by the studio to say hello. I remember him sitting on the sofa, next to my dog Clay, facing away from the production floor and controlled cacophony below. We were catching up, and I asked if he’d mind smelling the latest new sneaker mod.

Of course not.

He took a smell and off-handedly made 1 simple recommendation.

And that became the finished design…

Methyl benzoate: Molecule in so many flowers, most famous white florals, including gardenia, tuberose, lily. In life, this molecule attracts pollinators. In perfume, it supports and unleashes many famous fruity florals. In this project, we isolated it to evoke rubber, sweet plastic.

Styrax: This pushes the gummy, rubber effect while adding a further touch of sweetness—amber-syrup, not cloying, quasi musky, hot skin-like.

IBQ: Our critical leather note, which obviously cannot be naturally extracted--but an ingredient that, in a way, is part of or can be “found” in true, natural leather. Powerful, nearly spicy, dark, dank, deep.

Helional: Gives off the odor and feeling of melon. For me, this is candy coating-esque—smell of newness—rounds out the sharper aromas replicating rubber, glue, leather.

Aldehyde C18: Classic, sweet fruity lactonic. Waxy but effervescent pop: Warm coconut milk, evocative, nostalgic.

They asked me to describe the entire process—from ideation to scent design and product development to execution, demolding, packaging and pop up. They documented this in a capsule site called Masters of Air and asked that I note my favorite Air Max style. I chose the classic 90s in black and white with the “infrared” accents.

They came to shoot the process—and me in a fresh pair of those shoes. That was in front of the old studio on Vanderbilt Avenue in Clinton Hill. In the lead image they ultimately used, I was holding Clay by her pink leash, which matched the fuchsia back part of the sole around the suspended air bubble innovation."

This scent was made to hold a moment you can’t point to, but know by heart. Sneakers age. Boxes disappear. But the impression stays. Leather remains—not stitched or shaped, but suggested. A trace of ownership, of wanting, of waiting. Nearly a decade later, the scent endures. Quietly. Faithfully. Just as you remember it—even if what you’re remembering was never really there.

One now lives in the Nike archives in Beaverton, Oregon.

Photo Credits: Joya, Nike, Hypebeast, Sneaker News

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