My Cultural Path: The Making of a Perfume Historian

 

I suppose it was all pre-mapped out for me in a way, but like Indiana Jones famously said “there’s no X marking the spot.” I found the way to being a perfume historian while enjoying myself.  

Thus begins my autoethnography article for The Autoethnographer, a new publication which focuses on how I mapped out a path for myself combining historical and archeological studies with perfumery. Dr.Marlen Harrison invited me in an interview to describe my fragrant beginnings and the cultural axis on which my olfactory impressions were formed.

In narrative inquiry we come across subjects shaping the matter through their own “digestion” of facts, so to speak. It’s a very interesting approach to fragrance especially, because beyond the scientific facts, which can only be unlocked with gas chromatography and a mass spectrometer, personal tales give a more telling and more engaging sense of what any perfume is about.

 

Personally, and I might be wrong, I do not believe that it is even possible to entirely exclude one’s own approach to inquiry. There can be no author-evacuated history, because the historian is a product of their own times, they belong to a school of methodology, etc. This is why history is not an exact science like chemistry, but it is also what makes it fascinating; it’s different reading different books.

One is always in motion with history, events of the past are in a constant interaction with the present. 

 These lived experiences are hard to shake off. And they do tend to come up whenever I think of smells, because they inform my perception, so in that sense they become autoethnographic. When I smell a purely “American” perfume I tend to expect something clean and impressive in terms of claiming an area of a square foot around the wearer. When I think of Far Eastern scents I expect the woody and airy incense of the temples of those regions, or of the humid jungle seeping into the mix. Sometimes the final impression is juxtaposed with those primal expectations, so the aesthetic approach in writing follows two paths, one of fruition and one of refusal.

Please read my entire piece here on the Autoethnographer. 

Interview: Chandler Burr Shoots from the Hip for Etat Libre d'Orange

Chandler Burr shoots from the hip. This is probably why I consider him a friend. Truth, you see, possesses that rare beauty that can cut like a knife, but still you end up admiring the scarlet track lines. Here's the interview he granted me for the launch of You or Someone Like You, the upcoming fragrant release from Etat Libre d'Orange. Fasten your seatbelts, darlings, it's a bumpy (but oh so effing good!) ride.

Elena Vosnaki: So Chandler...There is a certain path to follow in the realm of being interested in how a seemingly mundane thing can be artistic and can produce fascination. First comes learning about what makes a perfume lover interested in the first place (ergo The Emperor of Scent). Then comes learning about the craft (A Scent of the Nile). Then comes learning about the industry at large (The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry). Then come personal assessments of those mysterious smelly things (NYT Scent critic column). And there are scent dinners (how would it feel if we combined two complementary senses together?) and curating a "blind test" line plus an Art of Scent exhibition (how would it feel if we erased everyone's perceived memory with a magic wand like Men in Black and THEN asked them their honest opinions on Duschamps' Urinal?).

Does art directing a perfume launch feel anti-climatic in comparison?

Chandler Burr: Wow, you've synthesized my entire scent career arc into a frighteningly accurate dialectic. I actually have a very specific answer for you: It was not anti-climactic at all. In fact, art directing a perfume was quite difficult, more so than I imagined before I did it, and my view of whether it came at the right time or the wrong time in my trajectory is split exactly in two. In part I wish I'd done it in 2005, after Emperor, the New Yorker piece "Nile," and Perfect Scent but just before I joined the Times and prepared to become a critic. Why. Because not surprisingly it gave me a deeper, as well as a different, understanding and appreciation for the artistic, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical demands on a scent artist -- Caroline Sabas, in my fortunate experience -- in creating one of these fucking works. For the sake of my criticism, it would axiomatically have made it better. (I think every critic should at least try to create a few works in the medium of the critique. The result has to be humility and wisdom, even for those few who'd turn out to have talent.)

At the same time, for the sake of You Or Someone Like You itself, I'm glad it didn't come till after the Times and the Art of Scent exhibition because those two experiences made me think more about the pure aesthetics and the subtleties of scent art, and I put those into the work I did with Caroline.

 It's an extremely strange relationship, creative director and perfumer. I think the closest analogy would be architect and builder. (Definitely not composer and conductor, that doesn't fit. Nor does author and editor fit, at all.) Studio executive and movie director is actually very good. I had a vision for a work that I had virtually no ability to make myself. I had to communicate it to Caroline. At its best, human communication sucks. The difficulty of telling Caroline what I wanted / didn't want/ liked/ didn't like/ wanted changed/ how I wanted it changed, plus asking for her opinion, which I found extremely valuable, and understanding her perception and the obstacles she faced. Jesus.

Elena Vosnaki: Did Etat Libre d'Orange approach you or you them with the spermatic idea? Have they read your novel?

Chandler Burr: Etienne had read my novel and loved the main character and narrator, an Englishwoman named Anne Rosenbaum who years before had married an American guy -he's now a studio exec- and lives with him in the Hollywood Hills. Also Anne is a reader-- literature is crucial to the novel. Etienne really liked the title as well. Etienne had mentioned a few times over the years our doing a project together, and I think his collection is arguably the single most creatively imaginative and risk-taking in existence today, so I was interested. But I sure as hell wasn't going to creatively direct a scent. I never intended to. I always told people that. I think Etienne would tell you that he found me somewhat frustrating to work with because, along with being a perfectionist, I was highly ambivalent and undecided about whether I should be doing that job.

Although interestingly none of my doubt was about what I wanted for the scent itself. My doubt was entirely, Was I saying the right things to Caroline or was I talking gibberish? Was I clear? And I know for a fact I sometimes wasn't. Seriously frustrating. Was I too demanding? Was I perceiving reality? Was I "projecting" or self deluding when I hit things I wanted changed or didn't like? Creative directing a perfume is like asking a painter to create Rorschach blots, but in a way you want them, and then making yourself interpret them, and then asking the painter to redo them… Actually, that may be complete horse shit and incoherent, but that's what it feels like sometimes. The scent kept evolving. The Givaudan evaluators, who were very serious and committed to the project, gave me excellent feedback. We finally let Etienne smell the thing, and he liked it, but he liked it too much for my taste, and I thought, "Oh, damnit…" Then went back to Caroline and asked for more changes.

Elena Vosnaki: Is the scent concept a meta-reading of the novel's idea of Otherness? It seems so to me!

Chandler Burr: OK, no. No. Wait, have you read the novel? If you did and told me you did, I completely forgot. [Elena: Yes, I have. No, I did not.] Otherness is one very good way to describe You's central theme. Or stupid, racist understandings of Otherness as opposed to serious, meaningful understandings of Otherness. Certainly it's about the fact that the Big Four, the largest four theological global conglomerates competing for market share, should be shut down and that we need to replace God, which doesn't exist, with good, which does, and that literature shows us this. Hell, I've gone off the rails now, but that's sort of the point, which is that the scent's concept has zero to do with any of this. It's incredibly simple. It's the scent that Anne would wear. No meta, no super. I thought: She lives in LA, where in my experience 99% of people recoil at the word "perfume" and anything heavier than Eau de Thé Vert is considered a fire in a coal mine. I get that. Anne would wear a post-perfume scent. (When people, normal people, not you and me and perfume shrine readers, say "perfumey" they mean aldehydic + heavy floral, which they associate, almost always correctly, with grandma. For ten years, Giorgio of Beverly Hills covered Beverly Hills like chlorine gas, and it cured everyone in LA of every wearing "perfume" in quotes again.)

I knew Anne's scent would be Luminist, the school Ellena both pioneered and uniquely mastered, it would be Naturalist/Realist, i.e. it would contain references to the natural world. Anne is a gardener, and her garden--I put their house on Macapa Drive above the 101 if you want to googlemap it--is a central location in the novel. And that's it. That's all Caroline and I did -- tried to make a perfume for this person who doesn't exist.

(By the way, you know what a dick I am about "gendering" fragrances. You was made for a female character, and as I've often said if you actually believe that means men shouldn't wear it, you don't know anything about scent.)


Elena Vosnaki: Well... We're both dicks then. But Los Angeles is semiotically a loaded place for several reasons. Some of which are described in your text about the inspiration behind the scent. Some others are added by the recipient of the smell depending on whether their associations come from the cinematic realm (glamor and/or decadence) or an actual visit to the place (physical sensations hitting the nose velcro). What was the single most important element that you thought that You or Someone Like You needed to focus on?

Chandler Burr: A culture, for lack of a better word. Ethos? Mindset? You focuses on contemporary Los Angeles, which is more a state of mind than an actual place. The LA sun creates a huge olfactory output. The smell of that hot, hot sun hitting the asphalt, the concrete, the hills of dry dust and palm trees, the ocean water. The eucalyptus, the morning overcast, which for me always focuses the scents like a magnifying glass when I go out to my car at 7am and everything is silent and coated in gray. Then it burns off by 10 and the sun is creating a different perfume. Sorry, I'm giving real world references when my point is that LA lives inside these scents and radiates its fabulous, insane, beautiful LA-ness through them.

I think I don’t know how to answer this question.

Well, here's something. The version of You we went with wasn't the one I myself was going to choose. We went -- and I don't regret this at all, I completely support this -- with a very similar but different one because there was an aspect of it that Etienne, Caroline, and the Givaudan team preferred for a reason. I don't want to be specific, but we wore and talked about them at length, I listened to them, and in the end I thought "You know, I'm going to trust them." So I did. As a journalist and critic, I hated the plastic creative director script, "OMG, it's my scent, it's perfection incarnate, my perfumer reached into my brain and put my neurons in a bottle, I love this scent more than my own lung tissue" etc etc. I think You is a good scent. I think people who like its aesthetic school will like it. It's not Drake (a bore), it's not Max Richter's Sleep (which I'm playing on my computer as I write this) and it's not Katy Perry (so fun). It's The Chainsmokers "Closer" meets a Satie tone poem. And that's exactly what I wanted. 

via

Elena Vosnaki: Is it easier to work with a perfumer when you know a bit about the actual bits that go into the formula or did you find this knowledge detracted from the artistic process like -say- focusing on whether one is using Prussian Blue oils on thick canvas instead of the more fluid acrylic in the same shade?

Chandler Burr: I called Karyn Khoury just before starting to work with Caroline, and she gave me great advice, including "Be patient. Don't panic if you lose youself in the mods. Keep breathing, and they'll come back into focus." She also said, "I never suggest specific materials to the perfumer." That one I completely reversed on. I know I don't want birch tar or amyl allyl caproate. I know it. And I found that far from throwing Caroline, when I suggested a material, or specified one I didn't want, it actually helped her understand, it communicated what I wanted, even if the material I said I wanted wasn't, in fact, the best one for that job and she used a different one. I find it insanely helpful to know what I know about raw materials. Crazy helpful.

 Because I hate the "So what are the 'notes'?" idiot reductionism that we apply to scent but would never apply to painting or music because we respect those mediums ("Well, does it have violas in it? I only listen to music with violas. The oboe? I'm not buying anything with an oboe!") I finally got Etienne to agree that not he, nor Etat, nor Givaudan, nor I, no one was going to talk about the raw materials in You. It's THE FUCKING WORK. Don't walk down the street with your headphones on second guessing the sound mixer on Frank Ocean's music. Just listen to the music. They thought I was crazy which is to say they thought I was stupid. Maybe. I've seen two pages of comments on my "Don't ask me about the materials" stance, and on both a majority of people said, "Burr is such a pretentious asshole." Whatever, man, you do, go focus on "notes" and buy something else. Or smell You and buy it if you like it. See, THIS is really cool -- I wrote this a thousand times in the New York Times, and now I get to put my money, or my no money, where my big mouth is.

Elena Vosnaki: This is the best test for anyone's inherent arrogance I suppose! So continue being honest: How many mods did it take for this to get finalised with Caroline Sabas? I hear 200-300 or more is not unusual for major releases and I do know of a few niche ones which took as many. Is it always better to try and try again or is there a fine point when you are destroying the soul of the creation? I find that constant editing really does work with writing (and this is why I'm asking you as your being an author informs your frame of thought and habit). It does not necessarily work with musical interpretation however. One cannot bribring back that rush of feeling that is new and "innocent" once we parse a musical piece to bits; our playing tends to become effortless but a tiny bit constipated (for lack of a better term?). How is it with perfume art direction? Does one know when to stop?

Chandler Burr: I can honestly say I have no idea how many mods Caroline made. And I really don't think it matters. You know, this "number of mods" stat they hand out, 99% of the time it's bullshit like everthing else in our industry that's given to the public. The more the mods, the closer to sainthood or some crap like that. Bitch, please. You can nail a perfume in two mods, and I know because Frederic Malle did (and fuck me if I can remember which perfume it is…?! Frederic told me this at lunch years ago, and I loved hearing it. He asked for one, very small, very specific adjustment of the first mod, and that was it. He agrees with me that The Award For The Most Mods is only coveted by numbskulls.

Elena Vosnaki: Is this project to be repeated in a second scent launch or has the circle closed on this and there's a different stop to the bus ride on that path we talked about in the beginning?
Chandler Burr: This is it. I'm working on several other projects, all connected to scent, none to creative directing another one.

Thanks Chandler for a fabulous interview. Best of luck with the perfume launch!

An Interview with Yours Truly on Enscent Me

My love affair with the Italian culture is a known quantity. The fact that I discover new nuggets of fragrant passion in the beautiful language of Dante is one of the perks of the Internet. Laura Lecce is the latest, a blogger who has founded enscent.me written bilingually in both English and Italian. Laura was kind enough to interview me on some fun scent questions. It is my pleasure to share it with you; you can read my interview to Laura on this link (in English).
You're also welcome to comment on Laura's blog if you like.

Questions & Answers with Alexandra Monet, Perfumer

Alexandra Monet, a young perfumer working for aroma producing company Drom fragrances Specifically she is responsible for the upcoming commemorative 15th anniversary edition of The Different Company, Le 15 (i.e. Le Quinze) out in September 2015. The new unisex fragrance is focusing on the sacred wood of Palo Santo, found in Latin America.

Enthusiastic and spontaneous, Alexandra has a sensitivity that allows her to put in perfume her emotions. She enjoys the gourmet styles and the vibrant notes. After studying at the ISIPCA, she works at DROM. In 2013 she created candles for The Different Company Home Fragrance Collection.

Alexandra has collaborated with Luc Gabriel, The Different Company's CEO and President, to compose the limited edition extrait de parfum, Le 15.

Here are a few insights into what makes her tick which I found interesting and wanted to share with you.

How did you find your passion for this profession?
My sense of smell has always titillated me more than all other senses. I rapidly wanted to transform this ‘‘tickle’’ into a profession.

What is your olfactive universe?
I like playing with edible notes and I am love musky clean notes, that evokes freshly washed linen.

If you were a raw material?
Without hesitation, Patchouli. This is a unique and magical raw material, a vibrant essence that lives as soon as I put it on my skin.

If you were a quality?
Impertinence.

If you were a colour?
Black. Maybe white, but certainly not grey!

If you were a Star?
Audrey Hepburn.

If you were a place?
A big city, at night time.

Olivier Polge: "You Don't Make Beautiful Fragrances with Complicated Ideas"

"Preferences change. In the 1990s, people wanted a very light fragrance. Today that’s not the case.

There are now so many heady scents, like ouds galore. I’ve heard that superstrong scents are meant to please customers in places like the Middle East and Russia. 

That’s a reality: Certain stronger scents do better in the Middle East, and Asian countries like their scents lighter. But I try not to be so opportunistic. I care less about geographic territory than spirit territory. Is this scent in the spirit of Chanel?"

Olivier Polge on the left, at the advertising campaign of Valentino Uomo, via welt.de

The above snippet comes from an interview of perfumer Olivier Polge at Chanel (formerly creator of the gorgeous Dior Homme, Balenciaga Florabotanica, Balenciaga Paris and all its flankers, Guerlain Cuir Beluga, Valentino Uomo, Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb, the newest Mugler Les Exceptions fragrance series and of the perfume best-sellers Flowerbomb, Lancome La Vie Est Belle, and Dior Pure Poison) given to the New York Times and Bee Shapiro.
Please find the interview in its entirety on this link. 

As we had reported before, concerning Olivier Polges' first scent for Chanel, named Misia after Coco Chanel’s friend Misia Sert, which joins the Chanel Les Exclusifs lineup of more-experimental scents midmonth (retailing at $160), the young perfumer is at the helm of the prestigious French house from now on, succeeding his father Jacques Polges. (Who in his turn had succeeded Henri Robert, who followed Ernest Beaux, essentially making Olivier only the 4th ever in-house head perfumer at Chanel).

 Smelling of lipstick, rose and powder, Chanel Les Exclusifs Misia perfume is said to conjure the dressing-room scents of the Ballets Russes.

A Fragrance Anecdote with IFF Evaluator & Author Karen Gilbert

I conducted a really direct, honest interview with Karen Gilbert, whose recent perfume book "Perfume: the Art & Craft of Fragrances" I reviewed on Perfume Shrine the other day. [The full interview is found on Fragrantica on this link.]

During our back & forth Gibert intimated the following interesting anecdote, which if nothing else proves that fragrance development is in reality far from what the average perfumista think it is. Let's give it to Karen.

Pic provided by Karen Gilbert for use on PerfumeShrine

"My role at the UK [IFF] office was to service projects which often had a very short turn around time. Sometimes we would only get a week or 2 (or less) to submit fragrances for a brief and we were juggling many different projects at a time. Unless it was for a huge launch like Lynx or Unilever or for a product that had technical challenges like a new type of antiperspirant base a perfumer wouldn’t even get the project – we would submit from what we call “shelf” fragrances which are collections developed for particular trends and already tested in product bases. I remember one particular brief for a mass market eau de toilette fragrance that we had no time on and the only suitable submission I had was a showergel fragrance that was less than half of the budget price we were given. I knew it would work but the client wouldn’t pick it if it was too cheap so I just altered the price to be in line with the other submissions. It won the brief and as far as I know it’s still in the fragrance market today, which goes to show that cost doesn’t always give an indication of quality."

Now, this is what I call honesty! Thanks, Karen!

Indie & Artisan Perfumers and Owners Speak: Mandy Aftel of Aftelier

Mandy Aftel granted me an interview on subjects which are usually never touched, such as business positioning & online only distribution, her unique place in the artisan universe as an all naturals perfumer, her experience with the luxury customers and how regional preferences shape (or rather do not shape) her output and the interest of the online aficionado/blogosphere. You can read the interview (and feel free to comment with your agreement/disagreement or questions) on this link on Fragrantica.

Here are two interesting quotes from Mandy to get you going.

About her distribution channels:
"I have chosen to now be only a web-based business; I previously also sold my perfumes in Henri Bendel’s and several small boutiques. I've been approached by almost every prestigious department store to sell my perfumes—when I turned down Neiman Marcus, their response was to ask me if I knew who they were? I personally like knowing that my customers are well taken care of and that everything is perfect about my products. When I sold in stores, I would see that the presentation of my perfumes was not up to my standards, which upset me. I take a lot of pleasure in individually wrapping each order and writing cards to people—I like having this relationship with my customer."

And about the price rises in the luxury & niche segment of the perfume business:
"As far as the industry justification for overpricing, that seems like a complete dodge at best! It reveals those perfume companies’ values—those are not my values and I don’t pay any attention to them. Yet there can actually be a blessing-in-disguise from high prices, since I like to encourage people to “buy less, better”—to have a meaningful connection with what they’ve bought and not be swayed by status concerns and marketing."

This interview comes as a follow-up of some issues we have discussed with Andy Tauer of Tauer Perfumes on this link, as well as a presentation of my views on the marketing side of perfume business, so if you missed those and the fascinating discussion that erupted in the comments, you might want to check them out to get things in context. Hopefully the series will continue with more artisans, indies and business insiders sharing their views with us.

"You can't see what I do, which gives perfumery a sense of magic": Perfumer Geza Schoen Shares

'In those days, it was rare to want to train as a perfumer. You were fully aware that it wasn't Karl Lagerfeld actually creating his fragrances but the role of the nose wasn't so clear'. [Geza] Schoen's father was an art teacher, and as a result he "was exposed to lots of weird things at an early age" and creativity was fully encouraged. Unusually, the young Schoen became fascinated by perfume samples and began to collect them, quickly teaching himself to identify the smells of each one blind. His formal training at the German company Haarman and Reimer took five years, in a class of just four students."

pic exclusively provided for Perfume Shrine: Geza Schoen on the left, with Thorsten Biehl on the right

AnOther magazine presents a documentary series focusing on international craftspeople, in partnership with discerning Egyptian jewellery house Azza Fahmy, and the fifth instalment focuses on Schoen and his fascinating world of niche perfumes (both for his own Escentric Molecules, the memorable blue Wode for Boudicca, the Ormonde Jayne and the Biehl Parfumkunstwerke GS lines).

"I think smell is the most powerful sense we have, and the most fascinating. It is also quite mystical – you can't see what I do, which gives perfumery a sense of magic."

You can watch the feature on this link. Text by Laura Bradley, Film by Stefan Heinrichs

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Iso E Super and Geza Schoen, GS03 for Biehl Parfumkunstwerke fragrance review.

Interview with Thorsten Biehl of Biehl Parfumkunstwerke & Giveaway of 10 Biehl Deluxe Perfume Sets

Listening to the deep baritone of Thorsten Biehl’s voice confirms what I suspected from wearing his perfumes: he does not take fools gladly, instead he takes his niche brand quite seriously, as he should. [and to find out for yourself, 10 deluxe atomisers in a draw for Perfume Shrine readers, more info at the bottom of the post!].
In an age of corporate marketing and conglomerates there’s something comforting about expressing one’s individuality via lifestyle choices. You can buy small batch organic produce at your local market or at the flick of the mouse. People on social media have lively discussions about unusual whiskeys or triple-milled soap coming from one specific village in the south of France. And you can try to smell smart and adventurous, instead of a “me too” clone, by opting for niche perfume brands such as Biehl Parfumkunstwerke. Based in Berlin, Germany, Biehl is no stranger to the best kept secrets of the fragrance industry, nor to the artistic temperament itself.

Thorsten Biehl had been working for German perfume giant Symrise (formerly H&R) for 17 years, inspired by his father, perfumer Henning Biehl, a man with the pensive profile of Herman Hesse and the first non-French perfumer to win a prestigious award for most innovative fragrance by the French Perfumer Association in 1987. It was this perfume which, reworked anew, became HB01 in the Biehl Parfumkunstwerke line and gave rise to the whole concept: an “art gallery” where artists (perfumers, artists for the nose) could exhibit their personal projects which would be curated by a decisive art director, Thorsten Biehl himself, to show off their different sides. The emphasis is placed on German-trained perfumers, who Thorsten has worked with over the years at Symrise, to showcase the singularity of their members compared to others from a different background, e.g. French-, Italian- or American-trained perfumers. “The first fragrance was the key driving factor for the creative process” says Biehl. “Who would buy the perfume that my father had created? It was prestigious but it lacked the exposure it needed. So I decided to launch it as a separate entity and from it sprang the idea of the Biehl line”. Kunst means “art” in German and “werke” means “works”, so in short “perfume artworks” is what Biehl stands for.

The official launch of Biehl Parfumkunstwerke came in the summer of 2007, but the backstage work was evidently going on for years before. Biehl has gathered a diverse mix of artists to begin with: Arturo Landi, Egon Oelkers, Geza Schön, Mark Buxton, Patricia Choux and his own father Henning.

Niche perfumery historically began as a legitimate approach to the problem of the mainstream, older houses degenerating into “pure commercial machines” as Thorsten puts it in no uncertain terms. “They are constantly putting things out, new things all the time, which has unavoidably brought the quality down dramatically in the last 30 years. Perfumeries themselves have become retail businesses, like super-markets, a location where you only go to buy, not experience. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that they do not know what they’re selling, most of the time!”  He references a popular fragrance (which shall remain unnamed) which is “just a trite eau de Cologne formula with some vanilla thrown in for good measure and it’s selling like it’s so novel!” In contrast, Biehl Parfumkunstwerke targets the discerning 10% of the population who want to find something special, something which sticks to a certain level of commitment and personal involvement from the creators’ side.
These more unusual scents were a welcome solace for the customer who wanted out of a rut. Niche perfumery is consequently experiencing a high level of attention at the moment, as people share their experiences online, go to perfume exhibitions, read and compare, whereas 10 years ago this was not possible; it took naked women and semi-naked men to create the image of a new fragrance to entice the consumer to pay enough attention. But no good deed goes unpunished, just as no good business idea is not fraught with pitfalls. The pitfall for niche came in forgetting its purpose, wanting to branch out beyond its scope, creating brands based on marketing findings alone (findings stating that high end niche is the only growing sector in the fragrance market), something which Biehl vehemently contravenes.

“Perfume can stand for big money in business terms. So there are some former niche brands which are becoming increasingly present in mass-market stores, such as Douglas or Sephora, retail giants, who focus on the commercial angles of perfumery. In a way it’s good for the niche, because they’re out. In another, it’s a dilution of the original idea of niche, and that’s bullshit.” Gotta love a man who isn’t scared to speak his mind!

Striving to appear a certain way, a few unscrupulous companies claim a work address in the Champs Élysées which turns out to be just an answering machine! This localized, specifically Frenchified end of the business is ripe for what the French themselves call a “bouleversement”; a dislocation, an upheaval. Brazil with its strong local market is a good example of the future ahead for the perfume business. “Sao Paolo is an emerging location for fragrance companies, as the production is now conducted within the country and answers to local needs”, clarifies Biehl.

Taking account of the local needs and context of a specific market goes a long way indeed, as in an anecdote that Thorsten Biehl revealed to me: “In the 1990s there was a huge trend on vanilla arising in the United States. On the heels of that knowledge, one of the leading multinational companies, Coty Inc., had launched Vanilla Fields, a fragrance heavily built on vanilla, also distributed in Mexico. But they were selling so little there that it became a laughing matter and a mystery at the same time. Turns out that the cheap Mexican taxis, small VW Beetles, are confined, with those cheap air freshener “trees” dangling from the rearview mirror, which were  -oh coincidence of coincidences- aromatized with fake vanilla! So the reference, the association, was a deterrent, you see. One always needs to take nuances into account.”
 Sometimes the damage is done in reporting instead. You have journalists incessantly repeating the PR drivel of fragrance copy writing, such as “the most expensive fragrance in the world” for a well known ware, which technically it is not. The bottle adorned with a crystal of 100% pure carbon provides all the bling-bling that the juice lacks and makes for the staggering asking price. But the tag line sticks; and sticks like a sore thumb at that, in a world where the customer is not required to be proficient in the makeup of a perfume formula to judge its legitimacy. Why the illusion?

 Biehl differentiated himself and his perfume brand, Biehl Parfumkunstwerke, from faux hauteur early on, insisting on producing quality packaged in no nonsense vessels; he sends his fragrances on a journey to the ends of people’s hearts, rather than the depths of their pocketbooks. This is why when I ask him where he sees himself in 10 years’ time he confides he has no concrete plans. “I don’t think about the future too much; not in that sense anyway. Perhaps it’s due to bad past experiences, but I don’t see myself a certain way, nor do I envision 50 perfumes in my brand’s portfolio. It is a nice topic to discuss over a glass of wine with good company, but it doesn’t really have an effect in my day to day existence”, laughs Thorsten. “I live well, but I do not plan ahead”. 

It’s all very well not to dwell on the future too much, but what about the past? To trace a man’s dedication to perfumery one needs to ask for experiences in his formative years, so this is what I did. Thorsten admitted to a soft spot for Paco Rabanne pour Homme, one of his first fragrant gifts from his father, a masculine cologne which was huge in the 1970s and 1980s. “I still think of it as special, I just don’t use it anymore”. In the 1990s Thorsten fell under the spell of Chanel’s Antaeus, a herbal fragrance with an evocation of a worn-leather-jacket that is somewhat of a contradicting enigma; pure sex id in a total class package. I can see what he means, my eyes all sparkle up when I catch a whiff of it myself. Thorsten is also taken with a fragrance by his good colleague, the olfactory artist Geza Schön, who composed GS02; spicy intrigue and warm sweetness infused with piquant essences evocative of absinth liquor and Campari bitters, it makes for an intoxicating cocktail for modern day poets maudits.  Clearly Thorsten Biehl and his Biehl Parfumkunstwerke are far removed from the fate of accursed poets, but they have the talent, the forward thinking and the fertile imagination to ignite Rimbaldian epiphanies in each and any one of us; and that’s what artistic perfumery stands for, really. 

Finally, for our European Union and USA readers, a giveaway: 10 sets of the Young Savages samples in the Biehl Parfumkunstwerke line, this includes 8 different fragrance deluxe sample atomisers, as shown above: from Geza Schoen GS01,02,03; from Mark Buxton MB 01,02,03 and from Patricia Choux PC01,02. To be eligible, please leave a comment below the post.

Interview with a Niche Perfume Brand Owner: Fabrice Penot of Le Labo

My interview with co-founder of Le Labo, Fabrice Penot, has been uploaded on Fragrantica. I had given a glimpse (and an exclusive) a few days ago when he kindly answered my question on whether perfumery is an art or craft, but the length of the interview has more popular questions, juicier bits on perfume launches and clever quips by Penot himself, such as the following inimitable reply to critics.

"...it is pretty disappointing to see critics who have a public voice getting stuck in this rhetoric of, "Hey! Rose 31 does not smell like Rose so I don't like it" and witness them not being able to be just moved by the smell itself. I am not saying Rose 31 should move everyone, I am saying if you are a serious critic, there should be a better argument for or against this perfume than the relevancy of its name. Would you respect a movie critic who would say, 'Yeah, I don't understand all the fuss about Reservoir Dogs, I did not hear any barking in it?' "

Go read!

Perfumery: Art or Craft? Fabrice Penot of Le Labo Weighs In

Perfumery has come under much scrutiny lately, with exhibitions focused on its merits and implications, critical writing on the subject, a tightly knit community of perfume aficionados. Many believe that the meticulous care involved in creating a perfume and the sensuous pleasure it offers elevates perfumery to the realm of the arts, even accepting a more "pop" element to it, much like cinema or illustration can be; others propose that the lack of a solidly built theoretical foundation behind it, with a theoretical literature to support it, is reason to refute this categorization, insisting that perfumery is a craft with a refined perspective.

I had the chance to interview Fabrice Penot, co-founder and art director for niche perfume brand Le Labo whose scents have often fallen prey to scrutiny on these very pages, and among other things we discussed this pertinent but perennial question to which he kindly answered in detail.

Do you, Fabrice, believe that perfumery is an art or a craft? The difference is subtle but poignant.

Fabrice Penot: "Love this question Elena, I have some time in front of me as I am answering these question on a plane back to New York from Grasse where Eddie [Rochie] and I went for the hand picking of the roses centifolia in the fields....

So, Art or Craft?

Well, the artistic dimension of perfumery is undeniable to me when the process involves pure creation, meaning when the perfume is not intended to meet an identified need in a market ( in that case, it becomes a product) - That’s why we care so much about the quality of intention invested in the creation. If a perfume is created with the only intention to move, to create beauty, to add a new milestone to the history of perfume creation and eventually achieve these goals, yes i believe perfumery can be considered as a ( minor) art. Yet i understand this concept can be discussed widely.

Where your question is interesting to me is in the opposition with craft because there is always always a very fine line between the craftsman and the artist. there is this quote i like that says " a man who works with his hands is a laborer, a man who work with his hands and his brain is a craftsman, a man who works with his hand, his brain and his soul is an artist"

With the industrial production of perfumery, we lost a luxury and soulful moment which happens in the preparation process.

At le labo, there is definitively this permanent artistic quest in the process of creation ( whether or not we achieve it), but there is also the key reverence we have in the craft of actually preparing the final perfumes ( or candles ...) once they are created that is key we believe in the final soulfulness of the creations and power they can have on people.

The quality of the work of our staff, the obsession to details when they handle our oils, formulate each bottle of perfume by hand, the passion, the care, the work values they have, the truth they put in every move they make are as close as you can be to craftsmanship. That makes me think that's maybe why we naturally replaced their labcoats by aprons last year without rationalizing it....

There are not lab technicians or sales persons or store managers at le labo; all the souls who work with us are all defined by the fact they do what they love and take pride in doing it right. It is not a job, it becomes a discipline, an attitude towards creating beauty in the lives of people through perfumery.

So as far as le labo, perfumery is not "Art or Craft". It is about endlessly trying to achieve both. Art in the creation process and Craftsmanship during the making process is what we thrive for, for the sake of the beauty of our lives, our reputation and the pleasure of the people wearing our fragrances."

Interview with Dr. Joachim Mensing, Fragrance Psychologist: How we Choose Fragrance and Spring Perfume Moods

“Fragrance and perfumes are offers for personal transformation, indented to bring us from our ACTUAL SELF – how we feel, closer to our IDEAL SELF – how we would like to feel. Behind them is the secret wish to transform our selves unconsciously to give us for example, a more feminine, more sensual, more dynamic or self-confident appearance than what we really feel. They also create a certain atmosphere and emotional setting.” Thus explains to us the intricacies of the perfume dynamic Dr. Joachim Mensing, Fragrance Psychologist, analyzing the lure that perfume (and scent in general) exerts on us. In an interesting interview which touches on the feeling of renewal that spring naturally provokes into most of us at this time of the year, Dr.Mensing sheds light on some of the innermost reasons that direct our choices.

Redbud tree on the Lousios river Gorge in Gortynia, Greece. Source: images.search.yahoo.com via PerfumeShrine on Pinterest

Central to this explanation is the admission that choosing a personal fragrance is a complex situation that can only be explained to a certain degree. Smell is edged on the emotional centre in the brain and is associated with long-term memory, a phenomenon which is familiar to all of us in our everyday lives. "The decision seems to be somehow irrational and is taken spontaneously and connected with the remembrances and feelings that we had and would like to re-experience again", Dr.Mensing elaborates. "They seem to appear out of the blue. The fascination for a certain fragrance is hidden in our subconscious and linked with desires and moods that are difficult to articulate. Of course there is no doubt that there are more and very important factors for the decision to a certain fragrance like the image, the sympathy, the packaging, advertising but also recommendations and word of mouth.
Exciting is, that certain wishes and moods come up more intense in spring, e.g. the wish for change, for spontaneity and to enjoy oneself are overwhelming. We want to live a more playful and frivolous life, we want to live our fantasies, be creative and also be provocative. In the U.S. there is a definitive higher preference for fruity floral fragrance family during this time of the year.

Perfumes that seem to express this spring-feeling are e.g.
Life, Esprit
Orange Tonic, Azzaro
Daisy, Marc Jacobs
Just me, Paris Hilton
Chance, Chanel”

This type of fragrance as our readers know is all over the place so it would be helpful to categorize them in a more analytical way than simply "the fruity floral" and to assess the fragrance market share they have in the USA market with some more data.  “If you take all prestige perfumes of the U.S. market that are categorized into the six big international fragrance families: Citrus Green, Floral Aldehydic, Fruity-Floral, Floriental, Oriental and Chypre, the dominance of the Florals in the U.S. is clear to see. The US market is characterized (like the English) by the spectrum of beautiful floral notes, which come in all kinds of facets and crossovers, ranging from fresh-fruity to Aldehyde brilliant, to the cozy warm interpretations of the so called Florientals. Over 70% of all fragrances belong to one or the other Floral family. Year around the Floral –Aldehydic fragrances are dominating with a market share of close to 30%, but every spring, the fresh-fruity floral become the favorites of all Florals. The refreshing, flowery fragrance Happy by Clinique is a good example”, says Dr.Joachim Mensing.

at Corfu island, Greece. Source: santoriniblog.tumblr.com via PerfumeShrine on Pinterest

The mood for spring fragrances and scents for warmer weather differentiates itself for the usual ambience of winter fragrances, at least to the mind of the average consumer (but often also to us, perfumistas, as we have often discussed the seasonal shift of the fragrance wardrobe and its subtler nuances). So what makes for a different experience between warmer weather and colder weather perfumes? And who are these covered in the international market as opposed to the US? 
Dr. Joachim Mensing explains that  “A typical spring fragrance smells mostly of fresh notes that belong to the type Citrus Green. Their market-share in the U.S. is about 15%. But in the Latin countries like Italy, Spain and Brazil, they have around a 18-25 % share. The citrus green fragrances reach out to a more extrovert personality who wants to feel more dynamic and energetic. They hate the idea of professional routine and don’t want to be bored. They set a signal with these refreshing and stimulating citrus-green-aqua notes like:

O de Lancôme, Lancôme
Escale à Portofino, Dior
Energizing Fragrance, Shiseido
Concentré d’Orange verte, Hermès

On the contrary, a typical autumn/winter-fragrance shows the longing for romantic sensuality. It is the wish for more emotion, tenderness and comfort. It is also the expectation to be spoiled and to be cosseted. This emotional setting is covered best by the Floriental fragrances that have a market share of about 10% in the U.S. for the whole year. Even more important for this time of the year are the Orientals in the US, with a market share of over 12% for the whole year. The Oriental perfumes express with their depth, spiciness’, warmth and mystery (many of these fragrances are loaded with intoxicating and intensive ingredients such as musk, vanilla, exotic resins and wood), which we especially cherish in the winter months.” [ed.note: and sometimes we opt for unusual, warm scents for summer!]

Dr.Mensing also explains the mnemonic connection we're making vis a vis warmer weather fragrances: “A lot of the citrus green family have the smell of young leaves and plants. The combination with hesperidic notes (like grapefruit, lemon, orange, lime) and modern aqua notes creates a sensation of freshness, ozone and the south, which our long-term memory associates pre-dominantly with the Mediterranean climate sensation.” Additionally we seem to actually smell differently during spring "because we are more open to all environmental stimuli and more curious. Our awareness is more differentiated and our nose reacts in more sensitive way. We smell with our emotional centre in the brain, which is the circuit of hormone production.”

Finally a seasonal recommendation asked of Dr.Mensing: Which fragrances would you recommend for Easter, Passover and what would be the best Mother’s Day choice? “Easter was in earlier times a celebration of fertility and in the Christian believes, it is a time for transformation. The same is true for Passover. So fragrances that express a joy of life and new beginning fit perfectly. Most of the people are surprised about their feelings and discover a new joy of life. They want to live more intensely and cherish their way of life,  so I suggest Fruity Floral notes like:

Pretty Nina, Nina Ricci
Cherie, Miss Dior by Dior
Inspiration, Lactose

These are just the perfect fit for this kind of mood.
Mother’s Day scents on the contrary stand for thankfulness, honor and homage. To show this we instinctively search for the most precious gifts. Here, the Floral Aldehydic notes are defined of elegant, sophisticated and expressive top notes that show a brilliance and the pureness of petals. The loved ones will be honored by an aura of respect, confidence and utter appreciation. Examples of this classic, elegant fragrance family are:

No.5 Eau Premiere, Chanel
J’adore, Dior
Caleche, Hermès”

Conducted via beautypress.com

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Best Scents that Sing Spring!, Flora Attica: Galivanting Amidst the Greek Gardens

Bougainvillea petals at Nafplio town, Greece. Source: jon7athan.tumblr.com via PerfumeShrine on Pinterest

Interview with Perfumer Ramon Monegal of Ramon Monegal Perfumes

Ramón Monegal Masó is the perfumer and driving force behind prominent niche perfumes firm Ramón Monegal from Barcelona, Spain. Certainly among the best discoveries of 2012 and a collection with something for everyone, the line attracts attention for two main reasons: Ramón Monegal at once continues an honored craftsmanship tradition, that of Spanish brand Myrurgia (of the erstwhile Maja) ~where he tenured as Creative Director and later Vice President~ and preempts trends and ideas of the future in his own independent line. Personally I was very impressed by several of the creations, so naturally I sought to question the author himself. Here is an interview he kindly granted me, highlighting some of his inspirations and the thinking behind the new line.

Elena Vosnaki:  It is rather astounding these days to find a niche line that offers such quality, quantity and diversity within their portfolio. Fourteen scents seem almost too many for any line, yet you have produced several within it that are bound to become cult favorites (I'm just mentioning in passing Mon Patchouly, Mon Cuir, Impossible Iris, Cuirelle, Umbra...). How did the vision for the RM line begin and how did it expand into what it contains now? 

Ramón Monegal: My current collection is the consequence of a career that never had freedom of expression. Nowadays my perfumes are the result of my own experiences and my bigger desires that never saw the light and has been my “raison d’être”. Those experiences and desires plus my current freedom have made my first collection possible. How will my collection evolve? This is very difficult to answer because once I have seen the success of my perfumes I can affirm that I will go on through a path of the excellence and trying to get closer to art, which is my main goal.

EV: How does it feel getting out of the traditional, family-owned Myrurgia (now under Puig) into a separate sector that would be more personalized? 

RM: I feel a great responsibility to all those who gave part of their life to teach me, I feel proud to be the fourth generation of a family dedicated to perfumery, I am encouraged and excited to be able to show my work, and a great satisfaction to be able to train my children to give continuity to the family tradition.

EV: Do you feel that the Spanish perfume tradition has more to offer to the international scene than what is currently recognized as "prestige"? I'm asking because many perfume fans are aware of the French-school, the US-school, maybe the British or Italian "school" of perfume tradition, but not the Spanish; they relegate it solely to the Eau de Cologne type of scents and the classic Maja (of course!). What do you have to say to that? 

RM: That’s true! We should make them change their minds. Some years ago nobody thought of Spain when talking about haute cuisine. However nowadays Spain is ranked first in the field of haute cuisine! It was possible by imagination, risk-taking and the talent of a chef, Ferran Adria, who with his Restaurant “El Bulli” obtained worldwide recognition with his creations. I think today Spanish perfumery is second-rate and in order to leave mediocrity behind, we should go back to it true origin, approach the art with passion, imagination, talent, freedom, courage and good education. We need to look and find the true origins again.

EV: Is entering the niche field the only way of growing a reputable brand without the back-up of big conglomerates these days? Does it offer other competitive advantages? 

RM: I think the big groups restrict freedom with too many filters, and therefore the resources diminish in favor of Marketing. I sincerely believe that a small company like ours is more agile and able to adapt better and faster to new technologies. In a company like ours we hear the opinions of our direct customers and respect them, we are able to spend more on the development of the perfume, the perfumer is the true author and thus the values are authentic, the atmosphere is exciting and everyone feels they are participants, therefore perfumes are better. If we add the experience I think the benefits are huge compared to the disadvantages, especially the economic ones we suffer for not belonging to a large group.

EV: The RM line is full of interesting and novel takes on raw materials that are reference points for niche perfumes and for perfume aficionados. Was it a conscious choice (offer a new "spin" on old beloveds) or was it a process of going with the vision of a composition for each perfume which resulted in that effect? 

RM: The language of perfume is the language of ingredients and also of the perfumer. In my case I was lucky that my experience was not only in laboratories. Throughout my career I have had the responsibility to locate and evaluate materials purchased worldwide, which has forced me to be up to date, and given me additional knowledge of its nuances and values. When working on a budget you lose the freedom to use certain materials and certain proportions, but when you make a personal perfume, when part of your soul is within the perfume, you regain the right to use whatever you want and become duty to get rid of trade obligations and approach to art. Today we have fantastic pure natural materials as well as synthetic molecules with an extraordinary quality. In my opinion the author of the 21st century should be able to use them all, regardless of price, or provenance. All that matters is the quality and the fine nuances.

EV:  I noticed that you carry three "musk" types in the line: White Cotton, Agar Musk and Cherry Musk, each very different from the other. What was the rationale behind those? 

RM: Actually in my Barcelona’s shop I have up to 5, but for my international collection I have selected only 3. The perfume personality defines and at the same time attracts the environment. Musk molecules attract me and I'm addicted to them. They have the virtue of resembling human pheromones but are still noticeable, exciting, pure, delicate, gentle, and are an excellent base to combine with all kinds of chords and olfactory images, and was something I always wanted to play in my previous stage but they never let me do.

via stylelovely.com

EV: The packaging of the series is exquisite and very classy. Who do we have to thank for? How did the inkwell idea came about? 

RM: My initial training was architecture, which I left to train as a perfumer, and my training has always defined the basic structures of my perfumes and base plates. More recently another of my concerns, the literary, led me to write the novel "Perfumer" [ed.note: in Spanish], that I wrote in my period of reflection and I discovered the value of an inkwell: the container of a material, the ink, that in the hands of the writer can turn into any kind of story. When I thought of drawing my perfume container, in a volume that it could define and indentify to myself,  the idea of the inkwell came to mind: it could be a good container for any olfactory history and it could have an strong architectural volume, and that is how I drew my iconic flacon. Then I had to adjust the proportions to incorporate a valve to make it rechargeable, and I chose high-quality materials as the semiautomatic glass, zamack to the hinge (a metal alloy of zinc, aluminum, magnesium and copper) and bakelite for the lid and for the packaging.

EV: What are some of your favorite things: Favorite city, favorite food, favorite perfume note, favorite fabric, favorite color...? 

RM: My favorite city is Barcelona because it is on a human scale, bright, artistic, Mediterranean, intellectual and inspiring. I love the new gastronomy Ferran Adria deconstructed ingredients based on first order, also the Japanese-style raw fish, with young & fruity white wine. I like the flowers tuberose and jasmine, galbanum incense and resins, iris root and vetiver, cedar and sandalwood, the molecules of musk and amber. My favorite spices are pink pepper and nutmeg. My favorite fabrics are linen, silk and leather. And my colors, black and yellow together.

EV: Where can one find your perfumes in Europe and in the US? Do you have plans of expanding to other markets as well? 

RM: In the U.S. we are available at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and in a selection of the best independent stores such as Luckyscent. In Europe we are already in Spain, Germany, Italy and coming soon in Romania, Berlin, Vienna and Brussels. We have begun the expansion less than a year ago and our plans are going step by step, selecting only the best places all over the world.  

EV: Is there a special fragrance that has marked you while growing up or one which you admire a lot from another perfumer? Why? 

RM: The smells of childhood marked me a lot, especially those from the sea; also the pitch (tar and leather) used by a master in the art of caulk caulking boats, in a small fishing village located on the Costa Brava where I spent my summer vacation, the tanning from the leather bags of my mom and the leather smell from the Aston Martin’s seats of my father. I love the smell of incense in liturgical celebrations ... Later, and in my training period as a perfumer, I found that the smell of humid earth comes from its roots and fell in love with ginger and vetiver root, especially the unclassifiable iris from Fiorence, which I chose to create my first customized fragrance for the was going to be my wife, María, for the day of our wedding, 36 years ago.There are classics that I have studied thoroughly and I am still admiring nowadays perhaps more than ever, as for example the true Jacques Guerlain's Shalimar, the incomparable iris of Chanel No.19 by Henri Robert, the Cuir de Russie by Ernest Beaux, the extracts of East woods by Lucien Maisonier in Myrurgia, besides other and obviously not forgetting perfumers as Artur J. Pey, Pierre Bourdon or Marcel Carles .

You can discover the perfumes on the official site.

Reviews of Impossible Iris and Mon Patchouly on these links.

Interview with Melissa Ceria, director of Art de Vivre programs at French Institute Alliance Francaise

"Perfume is an ephemeral thing, but it has a lasting effect on people". As I hear those words in the melodious cadenza of Melissa Ceria's voice I find myself nodding my head appreciatively. How many times have we not marveled at the power of fragrance, its mystique, its pull, its ability to inflict guttural responses, but also its ethereal quality of having the potential of an objet d'art.
Melissa Ceria, director of Art de Vivre Programs at The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in New York City, graciously granted me an interview in which we talked in detail about their upcoming Series Le Parfum: The Power of Fragrance, we had announced on Perfume Shrine a while ago. (Please refer to our timetable, descriptions on which perfumers to meet and ask questions of, tickets and links on our Art de Vivre announcement).

Melissa is a joy to talk to, a mother and professional who takes the time to answer questions with great care and genuine interest. She's generous and forthcoming with information and someone who really "gets" what makes a perfume lover tick. After all, she used to collect miniatures at the ripe age of 11 and dream of how these scents expressed her budding femininity. She's one of us!

In her words: "There is also a very aspirational angle in wearing perfume. Who do we become when we spray on our favorite perfume? Does it help us project a certain image of ourselves? (We make demands of perfumes.) Women want to get inspired by perfumes, to dream a bit. Advertising images especially cater to that, but also the whole experience of packaging and names and presentation, all these things inspire responses from women."

For the Art de Vivre series of exciting events scheduled as Le Parfum: the Power of Fragrance, kick-starting today, she invited Christophe Laudamiel, who will introduce samples provided exclusively by the perfume museum, L' Osmothèque (where he's co-curator), therefore rare and covetable by all serious perfume lovers, letting audiences discover an array of scents and their stories. Next, she introduces a panel of acclaimed professionals in fields having to do with fragrance and scents, who will discuss the influence of fragrance on identity, memory and desire. Last but not least, Melissa organizes "Speed Smelling", "a really great way for the audience to get to experience the work of great perfumers working today. They will have the chance to see what inspires a fragrance (Anything from grapefruit to graffiti, we say!) and meet with no less than 9 renowned IFF perfumers [...] as they unveil personal creations composed around elements that have inspired them. Each perfumer will sit at a table with guests, talk about their sources of inspiration and then reveal the perfume they created around those ideas. None of these fragrances are available on the market, so there's a surprise element to this that's fun. Attendees will be able to smell, ask questions, interact with the perfumers. Each session with each perfumer lasts for 5 minutes and then attendees will hop to the next table and meet the next perfumer! "

This is a piece of a greater piece. You can read the whole interview on this link on Fragrantica.

Miriam: The Fragrant Story Goes On & Interview with the Perfumer

“From the Desk of Miriam Masterson”, year 1968

"Three blocks away from our house on Evelyn Avenue, I take dance lessons,
at the Beauregard School of Ballet. Mother expects me to do my very best
and tells me so every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday on the way to the
studio. We’re often alone in the car, driving to some appointment or
engagement where something will be expected of me. I sit in the back seat,
staring at her hair. Not a strand out of place. The car smells of leather
upholstery, face powder, and the scent I think of as mother. I wonder
whether she feels insecure, being out in the world without her perfume
bottle. How can she make sure she applies enough to last her through the
day?
The bottle has no label. There might have been a ribbon--perhaps the
manufacturer tied something around the neck at one point. A box might
still exist, stored neatly on a shelf or in a drawer. When asked, mother says
she doesn’t know the name of the fragrance. It was a gift, she shrugs, as if
it fell out of the sky or simply appeared on her vanity one day.

It’s warm in the car and the heat has an interesting effect on the perfume. Maybe mother is perspiring, though that’s almost inconceivable.

Sometimes, when the car is parked in the garage, I go out and sit in it, and because of the smell mother is there with me, only I don’t feel I’ve done something wrong, or not well enough. Safe from her disappointment, I look out the window at the contents of the garage and I tell myself that at
some point I can get in a car like this and drive away if I’d like to. I can stop worrying about letting mother down, without having to feel that I’ve abandoned her. I won’t be abandoning mother because of the smell of her perfume inside the car. I’ll be leaving but taking her with me. I sit in the
front seat, imagining where I might drive. I look through the windshield as if entertaining an audience.


At the dance school, as Mr. Beauregard rehearses with us, I can feel mother
watching from the bench which lines one of the mirrored walls of the
studio. There are twenty girls in my class--all of us the same age--but
mother’s gaze singles me out and I feel diminished. I feel she would rather
have almost any other girl in the class as her daughter. I stare at my
classmates suspiciously, resentful of their unstudied perfection. By the
time we return to our driveway, mother’s perfume is somewhat stale, and
makes me a little queasy. She tells me I will have to do better in class; otherwise
I’ll continue to embarrass myself."

Thus continues the quest of Miriam, the character in Women's Picture, which became Miriam Eau de Parfum, the fragrance by Tauer Perfumes. 
For the occasion, Tauer replied to PerfumeShrine's questions below. Enjoy!

• When I showed the fragrance(s) to my Italian importer, his first reaction was: “But Andy, this is again different to what you have done so far. It is different. So different!”

Elena Vosnaki: How did the idea to combine film and perfume launches come about?
Andy Tauer: Actually, it is all Brian’s initial idea. And, in a sense, it came at a very difficult moment for myself. It is actually more than just launching a film and a perfume together. Brian was looking for a partner, who would be interested to get inspired by women’s portraits that he captures on celluloid. These are women portraits like we know them from the forties and fifties, transported into our time. He contacted me one day out of the blue, asking me whether I would be interested to come up with perfumes that mirror his portraits. I came out of negotiations with an investment banker on building a brand and a perfume together and to be frank: I was so NOT interested in another project with another guy. But I tried to be nice, and wanted to read the script of the movie(s) and took it with me on my biking holiday. There, on my way with the bike from lake Geneva to the Mediterranean,  in the evenings, I read the script, again and again. After having seen the movie,  in a first version, I knew: I want to do these fragrant portraits for Brian. I knew by then, somehow, that I can blindly trust him. I proposed to him, however, that we should not fill the fragrances into Tauer flacons. It would not do justice to his brilliant idea and to the portraits. This is why we came up with Tableau de Parfums as brand: To make sure that it is not “just another tauer fragrance” but something different. And to make sure,  that perfume lovers see the connection. When I showed the fragrance(s) to my Italian importer, his first reaction was, without knowing the background: “but Andy, this is again different to what you have done so far. It is different. So different!”    

• Bitter sweet memories are part of Miriam.

EV: I read how the memory of your own mother come into the picture upon seeing Brian's vision. Is there a connection with Miriam EDP?

AT: Yes and no.

No in the sense that the fragrance Miriam is made for Miriam, the figure in the movie Miriam, played by Ann Magnuson, who is, by the way, absolutely wonderful. This scene where she sits in the meeting room ,with the toast in her hand. Oh my…! When I saw it the first time, I was sitting in there with her!

Thus, I created the fragrance, with Miriam in mind, with Ann Magnuson being Miriam, and with my memories in my mind. And there, there is the Yes. Yes, of course: Miriam’s mother is old and suffers from dementia. Miriam cares for her, and her mother’s perfume is a link into a past that is gone and far away. My mother passed from us three years ago. Too early. But it is not us deciding when we need to part. My mother and me were very close, connected by a bond that is still very strong, a friendship, love, and the routines of telephone calls, regular dinners together at our and her place. In the end, with her disease entering the final phase, my partner and myself cared as best as we could and invited her to our house for a few weeks, after her last treatment, knowing that we are counting weeks now. We talked a lot. About a almost everything.

To be frank: I cannot handle death properly. I do not find consolation outside the fact that we are all star dust and will return to the universe and become a star one day. When I watched Woman’s Picture, it triggered a lot of memories of my family and my mother and her role as fighter, trying to let us grow up and give us all we need without a father; trying to cope with a life that was not easy. Being a mother is not easy. I feel men cannot fully grasp the love a mother has to her child. It is the memory of this love that made me smile and sad at the same time when I watched Woman’s Picture. Miriam, Loretta and also, especially, Ingrid. So touching.

• Anything else would not be honest.

EV: Do you think there is a buying audience for an aldehydic floral beyond a dedicated fan base these days? (When was the last time you heard of an aldehydic promoted as such?)

AT: Ah, Elena! Of course there  is! Miriam is a wonderful floral, aldehydic, green, deep, rich, vintage, wonderful oldfashioned, chic, grand perfume. A true classic. And it is much more. It is a link into a world of other women, of portraits, of a story of our mothers and grandmothers. And then, even if is not attracting a large buying audience: I do not think in market share and bottle turn over when creating a fragrance. The fragrance must be the way it is. Anything else would not be honest!

• Miriam is definitely vintage, or rather vintage-like

EV: What was the challenge in Miriam EDP? Perched between modern and vintage? Technical stuff? Seeing the film character changing course slowly possibly? Something else?
AT: My challenge was to come up with a fragrance that is born in the forties of the last century, but created today: How to find an aesthetic language that bridges this gap! How to create a fragrance that conserves this vintage spirit but fits with Miriam who lives today. I hope I managed. Miriam is definitely vintage, or rather vintage-like.

Miriam Eau de Parfum will launch in October at ScentBar in Los Angeles.

photo via romantichome blog