Kate Evans: Strong Scent, Memory and an Artistic Mother-Daughter Legacy

At the heart of every mother-daughter bond is an unspoken understanding that lingers like perfume; soft, personal and steeped in the creativity they share. Angela Flanders Perfumery is forty years of fragrance artistry, passed down from mother to daughter. From potpourri to perfumery, Angela Flanders herself started a lineage of aromatic creation, with her daughter, Kate Evans, following in her footsteps. Perfumery is specific and intimate, and the relationship between Kate and her mother perfectly represents this personal craft. Read: Kate Evans: Strong Scent, Memory and an Artistic Mother-Daughter Legacy to find out more.

Mothers in Art

In the creative industry, mothers and daughters are a prominent force; both as partners and individual creatives. There are many examples of business partnerships between mothers and daughters Gina and Margot of Luxeire clothing brand, and Anastasia and Claudia Soare of Anastasia Beverley Hills make up compnay to name a few.

Who is Angela Flanders?

Angela Flanders was a former costume designer who, by 1955, had turned her creative talent to fine personal fragrances, with distinctive and memorable scents.

Image of the Angela Flanders Perfumery Potpourri Counter, Columbia Road 1992

Angela Flanders Perfumery

She had begun her perfume making with a homemade potpourri, on Columbia Road in London, which is famous for its flower market. She was inspired by the beauty of natural ingredients and the history of perfume.

Legacy Work

The small, Victorian-style Perfumery in east London is where Angela would gather rare and exotic materials to create subtle perfumes that decorated a person with fragrance. She worked with personal, fine fragrance and created smells from her imagination. Her daughter, Kate Evans, now runs the Perfumery after Angela’s passing in 2016.

Taken behind the counter of Angela Flanders Columbia Road, 1980s

Kate Evans Perfumer

Kate Evans is a perfumer and custodian of her late mother’s legacy. In an exclusive interview, she reflects on her childhood spent beside her mother’s workbench. She talks about the scent-filled memories that shaped her creative path, and the quiet intimacy of learning to “smell” the world alongside her mother, Angela Flanders.

Fragrance Foundation Awards

The Angela Flanders Atelier Collection is a line of perfumes created by Kate to honour her mother, once she took over the business. The collection translates the mother and daughter’s history and love for textiles and fabrics into unique fragrances. Each scent is inspired by a specific fabric, like Leather Rosa, which won a Fragrance Foundation Award.

Shelf with perfumes

Leather Rosa Angela Flanders

The winner of the ‘Best New Independent Fragrance 2023’ is Leather Rosa. It is a dark rose scent, bewitching in nature, and “dressed in a coat of the finest vintage leather“.

Through sophisticated and elegant notes of exotic agar wood and smoky Oudh, a leathery tobacco accord is added. Amber makes a warm appearance in the base of this sensuous combination, with a sweet top note of raspberry and rose du mai. For Kate Evans, creating Leather Rosa was less a solo act than a duet. The knowledge and craft her mother passed down did not disappear; it evolved and was given a fresh voice in this scent.

October 2025 was the 40th anniversary celebration, and here .Cent had an exclusive chat with Kate Evans. She talks about growing up with her mother in the perfume business and what it was like having her mother share her skills from a young age.

Kate Evans measuring perfume (Image Left) Angela Flanders measuring perfume (Image Right)

Family Traditions

Jo: Were there any family traditions you used to do with your mother?

Kate: “We’d been going to Columbia Road (flower market) since we lived up in Islington. We would always go on a Sunday and there were always flowers in the house…”

“…There were always nice smells in the house and I think Angela, growing up in a biggish kind of country house, was used to those sorts of things”

Jo: “When your mother started with perfumery (later than many) What skills do you feel she already had?”

Kate: “She was taught as a child things like cutting herbs and drying them, cutting flowers and drying them and making preserves – jams and marmalade – all of those real traditions.”

Jo: “I’m trying to imaging you, as a young person watching her fill bottles, watching her mix them?“

Kate: “I would help with bottling and my Mum would always say something like ‘smell this’ and ‘what do you think’ and ‘this is what I’m working on’. I’m thankful I had that opportunity to learn alongside her“

Jo: “When did you feel you became more confident in the world of perfumery?”

Kate: “…When I won the award for ‘Leather Rosa’, that was a real moment, I felt – okay, maybe I’ve passed the apprenticeship… I can call myself a perfumer now...”

“…It was a lovely moment because obviously my mother had won the same award for ‘Precious One’. There was a lovely circularity in that… the baton’s been passed across.“

Leather Rosa Eau de Parfum, Angela Flanders

Smell and Memory

Jo: “What was your earliest memory of perfumery smell?“

Kate: “In the early days, my Mum loved the classics, the slightly more of the orientals... Where My Dad used to wear Eau Sauvage, which I remember well, he always smelt of Eau Sauvage. Especially with Christmas. So that for me is a very, very strong memory around my Dad.“

Jo: “So if you could choose a favourite perfume that your mother made, which would it be?”

Kate: “The one that I’m very fond of is the Moroccan Rose. She used to make me a special bottle, and I wore it a lot at one point, so I often go back to it.”

Jo: “I love the Moroccan Rose, it has all the lovely prettiness of a rose, but with a bit of leaf and thorn.”

Kate: “It’s a nice way of putting it actually. My mum used to say if you’re painting, you need a little dirty colour in the painting. You need a bit of edge to it.”

Anniversary Wishes

As Angela Flanders Perfumery marks forty years, each fragrance captures more than scent; it embodies the enduring power of mother-daughter creativity. Designed by Kate Evans in honour of her late mother, the award-winning Leather Rosa translates shared history into craft, texture, and memory into perfume. Kate and Angela’s legacy shows how maternal influence continues to shape the creative industry. Not through imitation, but through reinvention. In every perfume, the dialogue between generations lingers with a new twist on a shared history and a fresh future.

If you enjoyed this article, why not try Legacy of Leather and Roses.

.Cent Magazine, London; Luxury Mindset