There must be some kind of a grand plan to have me familiarize with the city of Brussels through briefest of stints, using – quite exclusively – my olfactory senses. It’s like one of those memory games where a card flashes a part of a photo and with every card you have to do your best to figure out the larger picture – in my case, the Brussels I know consists of: the pungent aroma of a sack of cocoa beans (with a chocolate factory attached to the end of it), the whiff of cinnamon sugar on my very genuine Belgian waffles*, and a fruity, sweet note of Elixir – the new Flower by Kenzo perfume – a note that graduates into a scent bathed in rose, and ends with a tinge of bourbon vanilla.

A couple of us girls arrived via Eurostar on a snug Autumn morning, and weaved our way through the city towards the launch of the fragrance at MAD (Mode and Design) Brussels, curated by artist Jean-François d’Or. The exhibition is a play on words and a performance of scent. A little trivia would reveal, that ‘Coquelicot’, or French for the word poppy, was oft written coquelicoq – where Coq means rooster. As a tribute, the most notable installation – “Le chant du coquelicot” (the song of the poppy) – fanned golden leaves into the air, every time the sun rose in the world. The campaign is a nod to the power of flower and celebration of peace and justice. By the dawn in Panama City, we shuffled out to catch the train home, pockets full of silk poppies doused in Elixir, leaving golden leaves dancing in our wake.

In collaboration with Kenzo

*contrary to doughy wannabe’s on Oxford Street (aka Does sir know the Heimlich Maneuver), the original proves to be quite fluffy in texture, and therefore makes sense to inhale with a layer of melted chocolate, and ask for seconds at the next block.

Coat – Versus. Leather trousers – ASOS. Bag – Celine. Top – Zara. Boots – Acne

Dress – Zara. Shoes – Kurt Geiger. Belt – Vintage LV. Coat – Zara Thank you Kittykat for helping with the photos!

It happened a few weeks back when I was Whatsapping with my mother (who by the way is getting scarily confident with her phone, she types so fast I’m scared she may actually be 14 years old) (sometimes she talks to me ONLY in emoticons), I was whining about eczema and that I caved into using cortisone cream, which is when she dropped the doozy. Now, I’d been waiting for this day since returning from the honeymoon back in 2011, for the the third burning question in the tigermum series – ‘So what about that grandchild?‘ – to drop. I beat her to the punch by answering the first two (‘You are going to uni, right?‘ and then ‘Why haven’t you found a job already‘) with swift efficiency, so in all honesty I thought she’d badger me to ‘pop one out’, perhaps in a similar fashion to how I got the heck out of Warsaw after highschool graduation (ASAP) went to uni. But who’d have thought she’d wait until now, specifically when I tell her I was going to use something that is essentially harmful for my body in the long-run, and consequently my future child? She cautioned that I am what I eat, and junior too, will be what I eat (cute little Snickers ice cream chicken burrito, for now), and assured me she’d wait with the real nagging until the eczema is dealt with. So when Kenzo asked me to interpret the long-standing fragrance Flower by Kenzo in collaboration with the charity Every Mother Counts, it reminded me of my own mother, who has held a mop in one hand throughout my life – a terrifying symbol of discipline but also what I now realize to be, a saber to wield off harm from her daughter. I love you mummy I stole your blue burberry coat I totally love you!