Jono Bornstein founded Folkwinds in 2022 to put North American materials, design and artwork first, and is usually both its creative director and nose. Folkwinds Smoke Jumping recalls the wildfire seasons that overlapped the 2018 to 2020 harvests in Napa and Sonoma, when he worked in wine cellars, and Folkwinds Jasper no Kodō grew from his time in Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies.
His formulas run above 90 per cent natural, with white ambergris, deer musk, floral absolutes and sandalwood. He brews many materials by co-extraction, a method he traces to Indian attars: Vermont apple cider with sandalwood for Folkwinds Santi Ana, Maine blueberry with bubblegum for Folkwinds Cloud Illusions, black ambergris with sandalwood for Folkwinds American Pharaoh. Rajesh Balkrishnan has directed two of his perfumes, and Folkwinds Poison Ivy was made with Mathew Schmuelian of Lost Tribe.
Folkwinds Jasper no Kodō, his flagship, pairs the Rockies with kōdō, the Japanese way of appreciating incense. Its second version piles on blackberries and agarwood; the third was recut for clarity, partly after a summer on the Haute Route in the Alps. Folkwinds Crimson and Clover is an apple tabac of Vermont apple cider, cranberries, clove and green tobacco. Folkwinds Midwinter Storm, an edition of 50, is an orris soliflore over Malinau and Thai agarwood. For Folkwinds Devil's Garden, Balkrishnan sourced Himalayan and desert materials and Bornstein built the accords.
