Fragrance house

Chronotope

Chronotope is an independent applied-theory practice and perfume studio based in Winter Park, Florida, founded in 2020 by writer, editor, and independent perfumer Carter Weeks Maddox. Its name draws on the literary concept of the chronotope, which connects time and space, while Maddox’s writing and literary-theory background shapes the studio’s use of perfume for storytelling. Chronotope’s creative approach emphasizes emotion, contradiction, discord, tension, and transformation, drawing questions from subjects including art, literature, neuroscience, psychology, current events, and cultural critique. The debut fragrance, Buen Camino Eau de Parfum, grew from Maddox’s experience walking Spain’s Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route after graduate school. About a year after launch, he shifted from treating perfume mainly as autobiography toward expressing other people’s embodied experiences. Playalinda, a fruity-floral perfume about memory that challenges gendered conventions in the genre, has been Chronotope’s bestseller for almost the entire time the brand has been open.