Vyrao exists to explore raising the energetic field with fragrance, and to connect with our audience of kindred spirits through art, culture, design, energy healing and the beauty and emotion that fuel us, daily. For us at Vyrao, energy is everything and is in everything. You feel good energy with people, within spaces, through voice, our thoughts, the colours we see, the scent we smell and in the metaverse.

Arriving where all these ideas connect is our newest team member, Ræ, a happy, lovely, beautiful, genderless being who represents and embodies all we are, will be and can be.

Our founder Yasmin Sewell and art director Olena Slyesarenko recently spoke with the journalist Hetty Mahlich from Showstudio.com about how Ræ came about. 

Ræ Creative Direction by Jaime Perlman Studio; Digital Artistry by Ujin Lin

Hetty Mahlich, Showstudio: Creating a sense of human feeling in the metaverse is something a lot of cynics are worried about. Do you feel that this connection is something that's missing from existing avatars, and why is Ræ different?

Yasmin Sewell, Vyrao: The question you’re asking me is exactly the reason why I wanted to do it actually. Ultimately, we created Ræ to be a presentation of Vyrao; a digital representation of what we’re about, for all of us. A being that omits good energy, as helping people shift and awaken their energetic field is ultimately the source of everything we’re about. But we did have to think about whether this was the right direction for us at this moment as a small company. We've been investing a lot into creative campaigns and assets with wonderful artists, which is a huge part of Vyrao; the healing, the wellness, tapping into senses, but also the creative.

I started to think about healing in general and energy. I was reminded that I’ve spent the last 10 years talking to my psychic on the phone. When I do healing sessions with Louise Mita [Vyrao's energist], they’re over the phone or over Zoom because she’s in Hawaii. I thought, 'Well yeah, energy can be transmitted through anything'.

In terms of images and these beautiful videos we create, we look at colour. Everything that makes you feel different, that shifts your energy, you’re looking at through a screen. I thought, 'Ah, we do this, this is what we’re about, this is the message we can tell through our avatar'. Yes, it's tapping into what everyone else is talking about with the metaverse and avatars, but it's about actually connecting to Vyrao and telling the story that energy is in everything and can be transmitted digitally.

HM: What's the concept behind this digital being's appearance?

YS: When we decided to do it, we thought, so what is this avatar? Who is it, what is it? We can do anything we want. But the first thing that we did was sit down with my animal spirit tarot deck (laughs), and we decided to pull a card for this avatar and we got the hummingbird, which is a transmitter of good energy, so that became a part of Ræ's being.

Olena Slyesarenko: We wanted to create an avatar which felt timeless, and wouldn't be a gimmick that lasts for a season. For me, it was the ultimate creativity project. Other than that hummingbird card, we could do absolutely anything, we could draw any being. We ended up reigning it in so we have a more relatable [human] being we can identify with. They embody all that energy, which comes through in the actions and scenarios we embody in the films.

YS: We wanted Ræ to be genderless, people might refer to them as a girl, but they can shift and transform...technically the word is 'fluid'. We’re a young brand, we’ve got so much to say about the fragrances, about why we created them. This is just the birth of Ræ.

OS: This being will live and develop with the brand. Over time, we’ll explore these different personalities and sides with them.

Read the rest of the conversation between Yasmin, Hetty and Olena here.