Julie Dunkley
British perfumer whose work includes compositions for BeauFort London. She trained at Belmay and became President of the British Society of Perfumers in 2023.
United Kingdom
About Julie Dunkley
Julie Dunkley is a perfumer working in Britain. The British Society of Perfumers lists her as a Senior Perfumer at Sozio UK, and she served as the society's President in 2023. She creates fragrances for BeauFort London.
Career
Dunkley joined FD&O on a lab apprenticeship scheme in June 1988, after leaving school. When Givaudan acquired the company in 1991, she moved to Belmay Fragrances as a lab technician. Her love of perfumery began there: working alongside Lisa Hipgrave, she became a trainee perfumer and, after six years, a perfumer. She stayed on as a perfumer when Belmay was sold to Symrise in 2013. In 2014 she became Senior Perfumer at Phoenix Fragrances, which merged with Sozio Fragrances to form Sozio UK in 2022.
Approach and Style
She worked at a company that produced many commercial fragrances, where the perfumers received no public credit for their work. Her collaboration with BeauFort London began over lunch: she and Julie Marlowe listened to the brand's ideas and asked how they could help. They then worked with him to develop the early collection. In her BeauFort compositions, materials such as metal, gunpowder, tobacco and leather are tied to specific scenes and stories.
Signature Works
- *Iron Duke* — An apparition of horse and rider that blurs the line between man and beast. Dry tobacco, metal and a boozy note open sharply, then dry down to saddle soap and leather, leaving a smoky trail of hay, gunpowder and dark musk.
- *Acrasia* — Inspired by a 16th-century epic allegorical poem, a sorceress and a mythic forest. Wine-drenched citrus gives way to rose spiced with cinnamon and incense, then settles into amber, vanilla and musk.
- *Rake & Ruin* — Juniper and other gin botanicals lead into smoky woods and musk, evoking the eighteenth-century London of William Hogarth’s prints.
