Quick answers
History of the house
Imaginary Authors was founded in 2012 in Portland (Oregon, United States) by Josh Meyer, a self-taught perfumer, and Ashod Simonian, creative director. The two founders launched the project as a small independent perfume house, with the explicit ambition of giving each scent a written world of its own, rather than a list of notes plugged into a marketing brief.
Josh Meyer started composing in Portland around 2010, after he discovered niche perfumery as a reader of fragrance blogs and a buyer of small-batch independent scents. He never enrolled at an institutional perfumery school and built his method through direct experimentation with raw materials. Ashod Simonian, his collaborator on visual identity, designed the bottles, the labels and the now-recognizable book-cover artwork of the catalogue from the very first launches in 2012.
The editorial concept of the house was set from day one: each perfume is presented as an imaginary book, signed by a fictional author, with a title, a cover, a written summary and a period. The olfactory composition is treated as the climate of that book, the atmosphere a reader would step into when opening it. This literary device runs through the entire catalogue and gives Imaginary Authors a documented identity inside the American niche scene of the 2010s.
The 2012 inaugural lineup already established the tone with four releases. Memoirs of a Trespasser placed a vanilla, oud and myrrh narrative under the name of a fictional author. Falling Into the Sea framed a citrus and tea coastal scene. Bull's Blood built a leathery floral story around a bullfighting reference. The Cobra and The Canary evoked an American road-trip in a high-school car, with hay, asphalt and tobacco. The catalogue grew steadily from there, with Cape Heartache added in 2013, Violet Disguise in 2014 and Saint Julep in 2017.
Across the 2010s, Imaginary Authors moved out of its initial Portland circuit into selective international distribution, with a presence in independent niche retailers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and continental Europe. The house has remained owned by its founders since 2012, with no documented acquisition by an industrial group, and continues to operate as a small independent American niche perfume house with Josh Meyer as sole perfumer.
Notable perfumes
The full Imaginary Authors catalogue is composed by Josh Meyer, the sole perfumer of the house. The seven compositions below are documented on les sites communautaires and un forum spécialisé with consistent attribution and launch year across the three sources.
| Year | Perfume | Perfumer | Olfactory family |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Memoirs of a Trespasser | Josh Meyer | Oriental woody |
| 2012 | Falling Into the Sea | Josh Meyer | Citrus tea aromatic |
| 2012 | Bull's Blood | Josh Meyer | Leather floral |
| 2012 | The Cobra and The Canary | Josh Meyer | Hay tobacco aromatic |
| 2013 | Cape Heartache | Josh Meyer | Woody resinous coniferous |
| 2012 | Violet Disguise | Josh Meyer | Violet fruity gourmand |
| 2017 | Saint Julep | Josh Meyer | Green minty aromatic |
Olfactory signature
Imaginary Authors writes a narrative American niche signature, where each composition functions as the olfactory climate of an imaginary book rather than a fragrance derived from a master accord. The catalogue is built perfume by perfume, with a title, a fictional author, a written summary and a setting that frames the wear. This editorial logic has defined the identity of the house since the inaugural 2012 lineup.
Several stylistic axes run through the work. A resinous woody coniferous axis, illustrated by Cape Heartache (2013), anchors the catalogue in the Pacific Northwest. A solar and tropical axis appears across Falling Into the Sea (2012) and later compositions playing on citrus, tea and sea air. An oriental gourmand axis runs through Memoirs of a Trespasser (2012), with vanilla, oud and myrrh. A green and aromatic axis carries The Cobra and The Canary (2012) and Saint Julep (2017). A dark fruity axis articulates Bull's Blood (2012) and Violet Disguise (2014) on leather, violet and fruit notes.
Each composition is deliberately figurative: the scent is meant to be read, not decoded. The written brief that accompanies each perfume, on the official site and in press communications, is treated as part of the composition itself, not as a marketing layer added afterward. The artisanal mode of production in Portland, kept at small scale, supports this approach with batch releases and limited expansions to the catalogue.
A narrative American niche perfume house where every scent is staged as the climate of an imaginary book signed by a fictional author, on a small Portland workshop scale since 2012.
Key characteristics
The house today
Imaginary Authors remains based in Portland (Oregon, United States), where Josh Meyer keeps his laboratory and his workshop. The founders continue to share the same operating split as in 2012: Josh Meyer composes every perfume of the catalogue, while Ashod Simonian directs the visual identity, the bottle design and the book-cover artwork that accompanies each release.
The house broadened its reach during the 2010s through selective international distribution, with a presence in independent niche retailers across North America and Europe, and through its official website. Imaginary Authors remains nonetheless more identified on the American market, where it built its reputation from 2012 onward as one of the recognizable voices of the Portland niche scene.
Imaginary Authors has remained owned by its founders since 2012 and is not part of any larger fragrance group. Josh Meyer keeps olfactory direction as the sole perfumer of the catalogue, and Ashod Simonian keeps creative direction. The house is regularly cited by les sites communautaires and un forum spécialisé among the most identifiable American narrative niche perfume houses of the 2010s, alongside other Portland and Brooklyn independents.