A fragrance brand with Australian natives and botanicals at its heart has created a new scent inspired by the country’s East Coast. Australia’s vast array of flora was, until nine years ago, largely untapped when it came to luxury items. And despite the fact that we are considered a nation of botanical “megadiversity”, we certainly didn’t have a fragrance brand that utilised the incredible numbers of natives in this country. So when Goldfield & Banks entered the market, it changed how we view our own backyard.
A luxury brand that celebrates the beauty and diversity of the Australian landscape was the central idea for Dimitri Weber, an Australian-based French-born fragrance expert, when he launched Goldfield & Banks in 2016. “I thought, ‘Let me continue [English botanist] Sir Joseph Banks’ legacy and share the beauty of this country,’” explains Weber, who relocated to Australia about a decade ago to be with his partner. “We have such extraordinary beauty in Australia and incredible botanicals. I love working with perfumers who work with all the prestigious brands and bringing them oils and essences from Australia that they have never heard of.”
Singlehandedly, Weber has created a fragrance label that encourages fresh thinking. By collecting ingredients harvested by passionate growers from across the country, he has become something of a pioneer of new scents. It all started with Pacific Rock Moss. The aromatic and aquatic fragrance, with distinctive marine notes, smells exactly like walking along an Australian beach during summer, thanks to the addition of new scent ingredient: Australian Coastal Moss. “I launched the Pacific Rock Moss fragrance nearly nine years ago,” explains Weber, who worked on the project with perfumers Francois Merle-Baudoin and Carine Certain Boin. “It was the first aquatic perfume in the niche category, which, back then, was all about amber oriental perfumes that were very dark and woody. I thought, ‘If I launch an Australian perfume, I want to come up with a fragrance that has no pesticides and is very creamy.’ That’s what you expect from Australian ingredients and produce.”

A classic case of fresh eyes and a desire for something unique, Weber has been focused on pushing past old boundaries. Australian agarwood, or oud, is one ingredient that he is particularly passionate about. “I flew back to a Paris trade show with some agarwood from Cairns,” he recalls. “People were saying ‘What’s this new thing – this new scent?’ The scent of Australian agarwood was completely new.”
During the wet season, marie claire visited a top-secret plantation of agarwood, which currently supplies almost all of its agarwood to Goldfield & Banks. Oud is able to fetch up to $10,000 a kilogram (hence the secrecy), and this property’s highly prized essence forms the basis of the cult-followed Botanical Series, a line that showcases international ingredients lovingly grown in our pure climate and rich, fertile soils. At the heart of the series is much-loved Silky Woods, a delicate yet warm and sensual fragrance of saffron, incense, ylang ylang and the prized Tropical Queensland-grown agarwood.
Meanwhile, Goldfield & Banks’ Native Collection has now grown to more than 10 fragrances. Each use native essences that send you on olfactory journeys to just about every landscape Australia has to offer: from the desert to lush rainforests and fresh coastlines. “It’s called the Native Collection because we highlight ingredients that are native to this country,” explains Weber. “Most of them have never been used in modern perfumery before.” Pacific Rock Flower is the latest addition to this native-focused collection. Reminiscent of the original cult-favourite Pacific Rock Moss, this new 20 per cent concentrated fragrance, created by both Weber (as artistic director) and renowned Grasse-based perfumer Emilie Bouge, was designed with women in mind. “I’ve always had this frustration of women buying Pacific Rock Moss and then saying, ‘Oh my husband ended up stealing it,’” explains Weber. “The idea of creating something for women came from there.”

Pacific Rock Moss’ soothing aquatic salty notes remain, but there’s something distinctly new at play. That something is Australian Coastal Tea Tree, a white flower that grows native along the headlands and dunes of Australia’s expansive east coast. “Floral fragrances are very French and I’m not comfortable with [a lot of traditional] floral notes,” says Weber. “So we use a lot of herbs and aromatic plants [in Goldfield & Banks fragrances]. We don’t have a lot of garden-style flowers that smell pretty.” Bouge came up with new accords to give the fragrance its creamy aquatic nature. “She created this whole accord with coral flowers by adding creamy notes, and then mimosas and things that were more tropical,” says Weber. An ode to the coastal beauty for which Australia is renowned, Weber and Bouge celebrate the shoreline with notes of citrus, creamy cocowax and Australian sandalwood, for a scent that is sparkling and effervescent while also boasting long-lasting depth. “We were in Paris and Emilie printed out the formula, which perfumers do not normally do,” recalls Weber. ‘There’s more than 100 ingredients in that perfume,’ which is so many. We went through all these ingredients and you think, ‘Oh my gosh, there are so many naturals in it,’ and you can smell them.”
It’s the olfactory equivalent of an Australian beach in a bottle.
Goldfield & Banks Pacific Rock Flower EDP is available at David Jones. Go to goldfieldandbanks.com.
Photography Andrew Tsangarides; Getty Images; Giada Pasqualetto; courtesy Goldfield & Banks.