Poesie

A new season of Poesie

Joelle Nealy

Our original Poesie logo was based on a sketch I made and had created in Photoshop. It cost under $50, which seemed like a reasonable budget when making perfume was a side project in a busy life that revolved around my work at a nonprofit. Since then, my little side project has grown through many hours, many orders, and many odors to become a full time job and a company I'm proud to call my own. As we've evolved, it seems we've outgrown that original logo. We needed something to express the Poesie of today, not the side project of yesterday.

This project has been in the works for months and couldn't have come to pass without the support of some wonderful members of the Poesie team, all amazing women in their own right. In particular, local artist Angie The Rose, who basically made it happen. She designed the new logo through a process involving many meetings to talk about the brand, more emails, and quite a few smells. I met Angie through a friend who wrote an article about her; we saw her work at a local gallery and I was smitten. She's super talented -- see for yourself. Knowing she was from the North Carolina mountains, I asked her to collaborate on our then upcoming Blue Highway collection, inspired by the Appalachians. (I am shameless and will ask for anything -- years of working at a nonprofit will do that.) She responded by generously donating an original work of art, which was used for the collection art and is currently one of my most prized possessions. 

At our first meeting -- at Vida Pour Tea, because this is a small town at heart and everything connects somehow, always -- I came with my selection of perfumes and had to laugh when Angie smelled them and her face lit up in enjoyment and relief. For all she knew, this weirdo self-proclaimed perfumer could have made stuff that smelled terrible! But she took the meeting anyway, because she's awesome. And because she's awesome, she likes to support woman-owned small businesses, which is how she ended up working on this project. 

Just as there would be no Poesie without the friends who answer frantic emails, give me pep talks and critiques and much more, there would be no Poesie without our many wonderful customers. I will never be able to express in words how much I appreciate each and every one of you. You literally made my dreams come true. Getting your sweet notes, knowing you're wearing Poesie fragrances and looking forward to new collections is beyond anything I could have expected when I started as a perfumer. Some of you have been fans since the first collection and some of you just discovered us and you are all the reason I get to make perfume, for which I am so grateful. That's why I hope you will love the new logo and new look as much as I do. I hope you will see in it all the things you love about the brand, and that you'll stick around for the next part of this adventure.