Culture: 426 posts

Christine Nagel is a perfumer, whose creations include Armani Privé Ambre Soie, Thierry Mugler B*Men (with Jacques Huclier), Mauboussin Histoire d’Eau Topaz, Cartier Eau de Cartier, Narciso Rodriguez for Her (with Francis Kurkdjian), Fendi Theorema, and Guerlain With Love. When presented during an interview with a question of “which fragrances convey a real emotion to you,” she responds:

“[Chanel] Bois des îles, because this fragrance has an incredible magic to it. [Shiseido] Féminité du Bois, which I find magnificent. I also adore Opium because of its perfect coherence with the brand. And [Clinique] Aromatics Elixir because of its seductive sensuality. These fragrances fascinate me, they make me shiver.” Read the rest of the interview on Scented Pages (edit: link no longer working).

If asked the same question, what would you answer?

Mandy Aftel’s passion for perfumery is contagious. When she speaks about her creations, one realizes that this is an individual whose love for perfume is as immense as her knowledge of essences and perfume history. Ms. Aftel’s work as a natural perfumer has been trendsetting, aided by her book “Essence and Alchemy” (North Point Press, 2001), which was a labor of love, distilled from her research and her experience as a perfumer. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this book became a corner stone upon which the contemporary natural perfumery movement was built. …

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Pierre Bourdon is the creator of fragrances like Iris Poudré, Yves Saint Laurent Kouros (1981), and Shiseido Féminité Du Bois (1992, with Christopher Sheldrake), and Dolce Vita (1996 , with Maurice Roger). When asked to link his creative sensibility to a pictoral style, he responds, “The period between impressionism and fauvism – a creative period which balances on figurative interpretation and transcendental reality. Having said that, I am equally fond of Vermeer’s paintings, in which the reproduction of light is almost supernatural.” Read the rest of the interview on Scented Pages (edit: link no longer working).

If you were to name your favorite art work, what fragrance would be associated with it?

Jan Vermeer. Woman with a Pearl Necklace. c.1664. Oil on canvas. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemaldegalerie, Berlin. From abcgallery.com.

Guy Robert, the creator of fragrances such as Hermès Calèche, Christian Dior Dioressence and Rochas Monsieur Rochas, during the course of a lecture given in April of 1998 to the British Society of Perfumers brought up a very interesting point about perfume creation. He notes that “our art is so mysterious, most of the perfumers cannot explain the proceedings they use to build a perfume. Our method could be compared to the Art of Cooking, a sort of “rule of thumb” (empiricism), and I agree this is not looking very serious!”

Recognizing the relationship between music and painting, Robert proceeds to offer two theories, even though they have not been defined. First, “for every perfume note there are several levels, like what the musicians call “octaves”.

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What makes a fragrance masculine or feminine? In many ways, the distinction that women smell of flowers and men of citrus and musk is taken for granted, whether it is used as a guideline to select a perfume, or whether it is ignored by those of us who frequently cross olfactory gender boundaries. However, when one learns of the role of scent in other cultures, one begins to realize the sheer complexity of the issue. In the East, the scent would not have such clear gender divisions as it does in the West. In the Middle East, men wear rose based fragrances, because yellow rose is the cherished flower in Islam. In India, traditionally both men and women are perfumed with the same essences–sandalwood, jasmine, vetiver, henna flowers, attars. …

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