Beauty inside and out. Anna Honcharova on TRIP:TYCH

TRIP:TYCH is an exquisite niche perfume brand that effortlessly stands out amongst the rest of the modern beauty industry.

Anna Honcharova, the visionary creative director of TRIP:TYCH, has created much more than just another brand. TRIP:TYCH is an immersive, meaningful system wherein every facet harmonises to orchestrate an unparalleled, unique aesthetic experience.
At the very essence of TRIP:TYCH lies its unwavering commitment to Ukrainian nature. The adept team draws inspiration from local plant species and uses it to create products. In this way, the brand becomes a pivotal part of the global beauty trend of sourcing locally, promoting and celebrating the benefits and beauty of the nature surrounding us.

Anna, you’ve been working as a fashion stylist for quite some time, and now you’re also a creative director. How do these two qualities coexist now?

This is a logical development for me. Styling is a kind of springboard; it helped me discover new sides of myself that I had been lacking before. Nowadays, creativity prevails, sometimes styling. But when something positive happens, you always want more of it. When you’ve tried something to the fullest, you don’t want to go back to half of it. Now for me, styling is only half of it. But maybe in the future, I will change my mind.

What is your understanding of beauty? What does this concept mean to you?

Beauty is in simple things, in uniqueness. Maybe it’s complicated, and maybe it’s trite for some people, but for me, it’s a story when you walk, and everything around you is beautiful: the sunset, strange people, and imperfect things. But nature is number one for me. I’m the kind of person who hugs trees and dreams of a garden bed, collects sticks and stones with my children and keeps them at home.

What inspired you to establish your own perfume brand? Can you share the thoughts and motivations that drove your decision?

It was subconscious. A chance, fate… A giant wave that accidentally covered me. At first, I had to swallow water, and now I’m learning to balance on this wave, and, of course, sometimes I fall back into the water, then get up and balance again. But I can’t imagine myself without this wave because when you get up, balance, and it carries you… It’s a feeling that can’t be described and can’t be bought for any money!

What distinguishes your perfume from others?

The Ukrainian mentality in terms of risk and the age of the maximalist, when there is no time to doubt, but to do everything to the fullest. Uncompromising. And the desire for a global idea, the inadmissibility of copycatting. If you forget about this rule and think: “I can do something trivial,” then watch and come back to it. But despite this, I make a lot of compromises.

And most importantly, I clearly understand my preference for the visual component, the quality of the composition and the uniqueness of the scents. It is important to me that every person, anywhere, in any interior, is happy every time they look at or use a TRIP:TYCH product. My goal is to bring even a gel bottle closer to design objects. That’s why we don’t release something new as often as we would like, and my list of new ideas is never fully realised, usually not even a third of them.

TRIP:TYCH moodboard

Can you tell us more about the local plants you use as ingredients?

It should be clarified here that plants are not direct components. There are two elements. The first is the scent that we take from these plants and embody it with our own interpretation. These plants are the primary source of the base. And the second component, in the case of a perfume line (eau de parfum + solid perfume jewellery), is also the source of inspiration for the bottle shape. For example, the main note of our NENUPHAR perfume is a flower, a yellow water lily. And the basis of the bottle shape is the seed pod of that flower. It was this shape that I found during the filming of the first campaign, and at that moment, it formed the whole puzzle of the central concept of the brand.

I should add here: the fact is that it is the first of three sets for TRIP:TYCH; it is the end, which is a new beginning. After all, a seed pod is the final stage of a plant’s flowering, but at the same time, it is the beginning of the life of a new plant. And this shape exists in nature in one form or another, starting with the pear, which is a fruit with seeds inside, or a clay jug that holds drinks that essentially give life to a person, and ending with the silhouette of a woman’s body, a line from the chest to the knee of an adult woman, with a new life emerging in the centre of it, in the uterus. It’s a philosophy. It’s like a symbol that brings you back to yourself as you are. The smell of the composition reminds many people of their grandmother’s old hut by the river. It is a warm memory that brings you back to your true self.
The next set will be coming soon, and it reflects the development and transformation of the personality that I’ve started to go through over the past two years and all the time with TRIP:TYCH.

What was the concept behind the creation of the bottle?

The shape of the vial itself follows the shape of a seed pod, as in the pendant, but is somewhat technically adapted.

The first important thing with the vial was refillability (being able to refil and replace it). I quickly realised that refill services are currently an unrealistic, absurd, non-ecological and extremely expensive way. People should order and refill themselves, and it should be a pleasant experience. Each of our products is aimed toward this goal and is demonstrated directly in the perfume, lip gloss, and jewellery (solid perfume). Our concept involves offering an elegant container that you purchase once, providing both visual pleasure and a practical refill inside to ensure a long lifespan.

In the case of the NENUPHAR bottle, I later discovered the subtle similarity found with the work of Elsa Peretti for Halston in the 1970s. Elsa Peretti was a brilliant woman whom I, to my shame, did not know about at the stage of creating the first scent. But if I come close to her level of genius in my work during my life, I will be super pleased with myself. After I learned about her, thanks to her, I realised in what coordinate system I see my development.

How did you come up with the design for the bottle?

I wanted to combine the magnetic construction sets for children and the shape of the NENUPHAR seed pod, incorporating the previous bottle version with the message “as if it were a game for adults”. We managed to achieve perfect transparency of the bottle, which is very important to me. This bottle carries a subtext emphasising the importance of the “soul of the idea” inside.

Who helps you realise your ideas?

In this regard, I want to give an example of a body. I am the head. Perhaps talented, perhaps not, but it is the engine from which everything starts and where thoughts are created. The head cannot function without the neck, without the body, which has arms and legs, blood, skeleton, muscles, and nervous system. It’s the same with TRIP:TYCH. My ideas will not be realised, and the company will not work if all the elements of the body, that is, the team, are not present. And no matter how talented or brilliant the head is, without a system and elements, it can remain at the stage of art or craft. When you realise that you want to scale, you need a team – a body – to keep the brand alive and growing.
I love my entire team, and thank everyone: <3!

About your plans for the future. What does the brand have in store in the near future?

The second perfume is coming soon. And, of course, a lot more 🙂