Alqémi​ is a love story, bottled

A good creative partnership, much like a good love story, takes time to develop. It is built through shared experiences, an understanding of each other's workflows and the trust that comes from working through a project together.

For Fight Gravity and creative agency Girl in Blue, Alqémi marked their second collaboration, following last year's campaign for Skin by Sherin. Their first project involved travelling to Korea and working to a tight timeline, giving both teams an opportunity to navigate the demands of an international production together. By the time they came to Alqémi, that experience had become the foundation for a more familiar way of working. 

As Anastasia, founder of Girl in Blue, reflects: “There's something that builds naturally when you've made work together before. You understand each other's rhythm; you know where to lean in and where to trust. By the time we came to Alqémi, that foundation was already there, and I think you can feel it in the film. The collaboration just had an ease to it.”

A clear understanding of where responsibilities sit is clearly an important part of that relationship. For Anastasia, that comes down to knowing what each team can confidently take ownership of: “We know what Girl in Blue needs to be across, and we know what we can hand over to Fight Gravity with full confidence. That's not something you can shortcut.” When each team knows what it needs to deliver, and where it can rely on the other, the creative process has room to move forward without unnecessary second-guessing. 

Inspired by Arabian perfumery, Alqémi brings together Middle Eastern heritage and a contemporary approach to fragrance. With three scents launching exclusively through the DOUGLAS Group across DOUGLAS and NOCIBÉ in 22 markets, the campaign set out to introduce the brand to a broad European audience while establishing a distinct identity for each fragrance.

Girl in Blue was involved from the outset, working across elements of the brand's design and strategy as well as the launch campaign. “With an emerging brand especially, having a scope wider than just the campaign gives our team the opportunity to shape it with a lot of intention from day one.”

This wider involvement gave Anastasia and the team the opportunity to consider how the campaign would sit within the brand's identity, rather than treating it as a standalone introduction. 

At the heart of the creative strategy was the idea of rotation. Through market research and an understanding of current trends, the Girl in Blue team identified how “Gen Z increasingly has a fragrance wardrobe rather than a signature scent”, with people rotating between scents depending on their “mood, time of day, or season”. This insight paved the way for the decision to give all three fragrances equal weight, reflecting a changing relationship with fragrance, particularly among Gen Z consumers.

This thinking became the starting point for the film's visual concept. What began as a more literal exploration of rotation through “light moving, the camera moving”, gradually evolved into something more figurative. As Anastasia describes it, the concept became a “rotation through time”.

Translating fragrance into imagery meant finding a visual language for something that cannot be seen. Rather than illustrating the scents literally, the campaign drew on their individual characters, using light, movement and atmosphere to give each its own world.

The Alqémi team had developed a visual language for the fragrances early in the process, with each scent carrying its own distinct atmosphere. Linen suggested “movement and airiness”, while Vanilla brought to mind “golden hour warmth, cosy and glowing”. Berry, by contrast, felt “richer, more nocturnal”. For Anastasia, bringing these “three worlds together allowed the film to tell a cohesive story without becoming overly literal”.

Introducing the concept into the physical space involved sourcing elements for the fragrance shots across London and working with a set designer to create the film's setting. Among the details constructed for the shoot was a window made from hand-cut cardboard, designed to cast an ornate, sculptural shadow across the set. The interplay of light and shadow extended the film's visual language into the physical environment.

Fight Gravity’s casting process also had to respond to the film's three distinct visual worlds. The lead role called for someone able to move naturally on camera while carrying the different looks and moods that would bring each fragrance to life. Ariana quickly emerged as a favourite, with Anastasia recalling how “Ariana immediately stood out for us internally. When we presented options to the Alqémi team, they landed on her immediately. It was one of those decisions that just came together pretty seamlessly.”