Perfumers & Fragrance Personalities: 43 posts

This year two formidable classics celebrate their sixtieth anniversaries. Robert Piguet Fracas (1948) will turn 65, while Estée Lauder Youth Dew (1953) will mark its 60th year. These remarkable fragrances elicit strong emotions and inspire us even today. Youth Dew set the trend for rich orientals, while no tuberose perfume can be spared a comparison with Fracas.

These perfumes are also notable because they were created by two of the first female perfumers: Germaine Cellier and Josephine Catapano, respectively.  The perfume industry of the 1940s and 50s was a boy’s club. In 1947, Donald William Dresden wrote in his article, The Twenty “Noses” of France, “Only a few people have the supersense of smell necessary to become a Nose—for reasons known only to Noses themselves, no woman has ever had it…” Dresden, reporting for the New York Times, simply reiterated what he heard around Grasse, France, the main perfumery hub of those days.

Continue reading →

It’s with much sadness that I share the news of perfumer Guy Robert passing away on Monday, May 28th. Whether we are talking about Mr. Robert’s ravishing Christian Dior Dioressence or opulent Amouage Gold, sassy The Pink Room Parfum Pour Toi or glamorous Hermès Calèche, Mr. Robert’s fragrances are what French perfumery calls “grand parfums,” perfume symphonies. Mr. Robert’s creations also include Hermès Equipage, Doblis, Madame Rochas, Monsieur Rochas, Gucci Pour Homme (1976), The Pink Room Parfum No 1, Parfum Gres Chouda, among many others. It’s an impressive portfolio that reveals Mr. Robert’s creativity and imagination. ”You need an orchestra to play a symphony, but you can make great music with just a flute,” he would say, and his perfumes, even at their simplest, have numerous layers and sing in perfect harmony.

Continue reading →

Indie perfumer Mandy Aftel’s new perfume Sepia was inspired by her explorations of California’s Gold Country ghost towns. During the Letters to A Fellow Perfumer series on Nathan Branch’s blog, Sepia went from a fantasy of a lost world to a perfume. It is includes notes of cedarwood, yellow mandarin, pink grapefruit, pink lotus, strawberry, jasmine grandiflorum, cocoa, coffee, tobacco, oud, indole, ambergris, cepes, and labdanum. I decided to ask Mandy a few questions about her perfume and the creative process behind it.

Continue reading →

One of the best interviews I have read recently was posted on French blog Simon~says! (thank you for the link, Anissa.) François Simon, a food writer, talks with Catherine Deneuve in his article, Rencontre Avec Catherine Deneuve, about a dizzying range of perfume topics—her first perfume, her role as a fragrance muse, her favorite perfumes on men, the strange scents that she enjoys, etc. The original interview is in French, which I highly recommend reading. For those who do not speak French, I will post a few interesting excerpts. To round out the topic, I will also include mentions of Deneuve’s other scented references from her previous interviews. The legendary movie star is an avid perfume lover, and she even wrote a preface to Frédéric Malle’s new book, On Perfume Making.

Frédéric Malle Noir Epices

Deneuve mentions that she selected Noir Epices by Michel Roudnitska for the role of Princess Marie Bonaparte in the mini-series Princesse Marie (2004.) Noir Epices was a perfect way to slip into the character of a strong, bold, audacious woman.

Continue reading →

Jean-Claude Ellena, the exclusive perfumer for Hermès and author of “Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent,” admires [Thierry Mugler] Angel for its structure. “It has a strong shape,” he said. “People can recognize you in the street as somebody who wears Angel.” But he refuses to use sugary notes in his own perfumes. “When you use the sugary gourmand product, I know by experience that you please easily,” Mr. Ellena said. “And when you please easily, people are pleased for the moment, but after they forget. I prefer a perfume that is more difficult to understand.”

From New York Times’s article A Little Confection Behind the Ear. Thanks to Tom for a link!