The Diary of a Nose (7 page)

As a perfumer, I do not have an actual job, but I practice a craft, one that involves knowledge, know-how and skill. And yet that in itself is not enough: in order to continue to exist and to practice my craft, I have to keep re-inventing it and not just repeat any old recipes.

Unlike a ‘proper’ job, which is quantifiable, a craft is always extending its field of operations, pushing the boundaries of the craftsman’s abilities ever further. Inventing means renewing, growing.

Cabris, Tuesday 27 April 2010

Iris Ukiyoé

The name of the new Hermessence has been chosen. Having hesitated for a long time between
Iris Ukiyo
and
Iris Ukiyoé
, I chose the latter. The word
‘ukiyo’
means ‘the floating world’, an aspect of Buddhist philosophy that invites us to meditate on the poignant beauty of fragile things. It teaches us that the world is constantly changing, ephemeral, evanescent, and resists any attempt to model it. This word
‘ukiyo’
provides an echo of my vision of the perfume; the additional ‘é’ implies a pictorial expression of this world and refers more specifically to Japanese engravings. Here, the expression is olfactory. These engravings attract our attention and awaken our curiosity because they depict subjects drawn from daily life as the seasons go by: flowers, landscapes and journeys – such as Hiroshige’s
Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido
(the route connecting Kyoto, the imperial capital, to Tokyo, the shogun capital). The same subjects, points of view, blocks of solid color and successive layers to suggest perspective, and the same rhythm in the composition itself, were used by painters in the late nineteenth century. I am very interested in painted screens, particularly those representing
The Tale of Genji
. A number of them narrate the lives of noblemen. They have a geometric composition, gilded enclosures and clouds separating and organizing men and women’s daily leisure pursuits. The absence of roofs enables viewers to see right inside their homes and to have access to the intimate details of a culture with an acute sense of propriety, much influenced by the arts.

Corso di italiano per stranieri

Over the last few months, I have started studying Italian again, not with a view to using it professionally, but for the pleasure. The pleasure of putting myself in a position of ignorance and learning; learning a language, or any other thing, means opening yourself up to the world once more; it is also a return to humility.

I really like my young Italian teacher. He teaches in a private school in Nice, and speaks several languages including French, English and Spanish. Every Tuesday afternoon, he takes the bus to Grasse from the bus station in Nice, changes at Cabris and walks two kilometers to my workshop. It takes him nearly three hours – the same distance usually takes less than an hour by car. It is not so much the distance that matters as the journey itself. He does not complain about the wasted time. He takes pleasure in looking at the scenery, at sitting back and being driven. He reads and sometimes marks his pupils’ work. This trick of calmly and contentedly apprehending time strikes me as altogether delightful and enviable.

The two hours we spend together are intensive and require an effort of concentration on my part. ‘Luckily,’ the teacher says, ‘you have a musical ear.’ I remember sounds, find it quite easy to understand what he says to me and to reproduce words correctly. The most difficult thing for me is listening to recorded conversations. Because it is impossible to interrupt them; I have to listen to these dialogues through to the end before trying to repeat the snatches I have understood.

In the early weeks, unable to practice because of my busy schedule, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of dissatisfaction and guilt. Until the day when I realized there was no need to feel guilty and that I should give in to the thrill of rediscovery. No school marks, no exams looming, just the pure pleasure of wandering through this language I so love, in the same way that I stroll along the path of various perfumes I am planning.

Late April, the month belongs to lily of the valley. It looks as if I am going to settle on the premise for a project, one I have been working on for several years, called
Fleur de porcelaine
.

Cabris, Thursday 29 April 2010

Evaluation

‘You don’t smell things the way we do!’ How often have I heard that during perfume evaluations! Taken at face value, these words could mean that I am unique, that my nasal appendage is out of the ordinary; and I could find myself hauled up to the summit, alone. But I could also view this pronouncement as a humiliation, a rejection: ‘You’re different, you don’t belong in our world; how could you judge things the way we do?’

No, I don’t smell things the way you do. With the passing years, for the sake of perfumes and for them alone, I have developed an analytical, methodical and distant nose, and, although my curiosity may still be fierce and acute, I long ago stopped feeling infatuated with a new discovery. I envy the emotion an enthusiast experiences when he smells a perfume for the first time, using words of love that I wish I could come up with again.

I do not expect technical comments from an evaluation, nor for the perfume to be positioned in terms of the market; I mostly hope for observations. I wait for people to appropriate the perfume, to experience it, judge it and get the feel of it without thinking about the aims of the project, and to describe it as a perfume lover would – one who responds to his actual experience and describes his pleasure or displeasure.

Cabris, Friday 30 April 2010

Féminin H

My drafts for a perfume on the theme of pears have been waiting on the table for two months now. I smell the last trial and rediscover the smell I so liked. I ask my assistant for a ‘fresh’ solution of the concentrate that she keeps in a cupboard, away from the light. When the sample is diluted it has a hard, harsh smell. It will need to spend a long period of maturation steeped in alcohol to achieve the rounded notes of pears.

What it says is appetizing, crisp, seductive but a little cold. So I modify the pear accord to give it a juicier feel, and I highlight the perfume’s sensuality by intensifying the little trill of chypre. I choose one of the trials and ask for a half-liter to be put aside to mature.

The painter Cézanne said to Pissaro: ‘With just an apple, I want to amaze all of Paris.’ There is a bit of that ambition in what I am doing: I want to surprise and amaze with an everyday smell.

Cabris, Saturday 1 May 2010

Perfection

I am with Jane, an American whose heart belongs in part to France, and we are talking about perfection.

‘Can you achieve perfection in your work?’

‘I think so, although I constantly question it.’

‘How would you describe perfection?’

‘I can’t give you a definition. What I can say is that Christian culture sets up perfection as a goal to aim for, while at the same time introducing a notion of struggle and unattainability into this aspiration, because, to Christians, God alone can embody and represent true perfection.’

‘I find that disturbing.’

‘In the West, Christian culture clearly permeates views, and influences the way people see and judge things. In Chinese or Japanese culture, perfection exists, it is also a goal to aim for, but the aspiration isn’t unattainable and isn’t tainted by a sense of guilt. Buildings, paintings, sculptures and pieces of pottery are recognized as “national treasures” when they represent perfection. People, particularly artists and craftsmen with unusual skills, can also be described as “living national treasures.” France may also describe works exhibited in its museums as “national treasures,” but the term refers only to their value.’

Cabris, Friday 7 May 2010

‘Craftsman and Artist’

Hermès is an establishment whose heart beats to the rhythm of its ‘podiums.’ Twice a year, in January and July, all the creative departments present their spring-summer and autumn-winter collections to a gathering of its own chairmen, directors, designers, craftsmen and artists, and to the world as a whole. July is nearly here, and I am being asked to write the text for next year’s catalogue on the theme of ‘Craftsman and Artist.’

Craftsman, artist: I have never managed to settle for one or other of these definitions for myself. I feel like a craftsman when I am completely wrapped up in making a perfume; I feel like an artist when I imagine the perfume I need to make. In fact, I constantly juggle with the two standpoints. If perfume is first and foremost a creation of the mind, it cannot actually be created without the mastery of true skill.

When I am creating fragrances for the Cologne collection, I am very much the craftsman: the raw material gives the perfume its meaning, even when I twist its characteristics by omitting citrus essences, which are traditionally indispensable to this form of expression. It was in this spirit that I constructed
Eau de gentiane blanche
around white musk – the name given to synthetic musk – by substituting the age-old olfactory signs for hygiene and cleanliness that are citrus fruits with those of today: white musks.

When I am creating the Hermessence perfumes – a collection
sold exclusively in Hermès stores – I behave like an artist, with the raw material becoming a symbol for an idea. With these perfumes, although the names refer to the raw material used, the idea is to create something realistic (I like that word: the solid ‘real’ and the approximate ‘istic’), that plays on realities and appearances, and acts as a good definition of my work.

Cabris, Tuesday 11 May 2010

Journalists’ questions

Not a week goes by when I do not receive an interview by email. Apart from questions relating to the launch of a perfume, inevitably a brand new one, there are recurring themes: questions about the future, fashion, trends, upcoming launches, sources of inspiration, personal experiences, how to create a classic perfume (which I interpret: ‘a perfume that stands the test of time’), how to choose and store perfume, the raw materials I use and, lastly, my likes and dislikes.

I have not always responded to interviews very willingly. As a young perfumer, they made me uncomfortable. My nose buried in a bottle, engrossed in my work, I didn’t know how to reply. As I have matured, I have opened up to this sort of exchange, taking pleasure in the questions I am asked, seeing them as another opportunity to think about what I do, to take a step back and to hone my craft. Now I wait greedily for the one question that I cannot answer straight away, the one I will keep hold of or write down in order to think on it at greater length. Sharing information in this way deepens my love of perfume.

I like to think that when the ‘beauty’ press and blogs give information and share their knowledge about perfume, the general public becomes more susceptible to this form of expression. By understanding what they smell, by placing perfumes the better to discuss them, perfume enthusiasts share their pleasure and create the conditions for an addiction to perfume.

Cabris, Wednesday 12 May 2010

An ordinary day

Thank goodness, I also have ordinary days. On these days, I arrive in the office at about 8.30 in the morning. Anne has already rolled up the metal shutters on the large bay windows, and switched on the computers, the photocopier and the coffee-maker. Over a coffee, we discuss the tasks for the day, and any imminent visits, if visits there are to be.

Once at my desk, I start by evaluating the previous day’s work on test blotters. I repeat this evaluation process with freshly dipped blotters. I make a note of the alterations, changes in proportions and increases or decreases in raw materials. To keep a sense of perspective, I work on three or four themes at once. I work out what I am going to do on paper. I prefer paper because it gives me an overall view of a formula and means I can make annotations in pencil. I leave it to my assistant to calculate costs and check that my work complies with current standards, which she does on her computer when the information is needed. When the final modifications have been made, I give her the formulae. While she gets the various elements together and sets the production process in motion, I screen my emails, read those that have escaped the deleted bin, and reply to written interviews. The only interruptions to my work will be a few telephone calls with Pantin, where the Hermès offices are located.

Once the trials have been made, I unscrew the bottles, sniff them and dip the ends of blotters into them. I smell trials with
one long inhalation lasting several seconds, hunched over the bottle to be at one with the perfume. I breathe out and my body unfurls. I smell it again. I compare the trials, flitting from one blotter to the next. I ‘inter-smell’ the range of possibilities, feel encouraged, then select what I want to keep. Lastly, I write down the formulae and correct them. More work begins. I leave the selected trials on a blotter-holder at least overnight so that I can see how they evolve and can rectify possible flaws in their composition. Sometimes, when I fail to pin down my thoughts, I postpone the work for a few days. Depending on the project the number of trials varies from a handful to hundreds – quantity is not connected to quality or vice versa. We break for an hour for lunch. Then I leave the workshop and go for a long walk; this gives me a chance to air my nose, which is simply a testing tool, and to put my thoughts in order again. The afternoon is similar to the morning. Sometimes, caught up in the round of trials and new finds, I lose track of time and my assistant follows suit. However, more often than not, ideas fail to appear on demand.

Paris, Friday 14 May 2010

Censorship

A real boon, when you have lunch at Ladurée, is to be able to order one of their boxes of macarons without waiting at the register. You simply ask your waitress for a slip to fill out with the flavors you have chosen and how many you would like. Your order will be waiting for you when you leave. We make our choice: a box of twenty-four in various flavors, salted-butter caramel, coffee, praline, chocolate, raspberry, orange blossom, lily of the valley and mimosa. My wife is curious about the lily of the valley and mimosa flavors, and asks whether – given that tastes and smells are so inextricable – it is possible to invent tastes that do not relate to an existing perfume. In reply I tell her that the amber used in perfumery was not originally a reference to a smell with natural origins, despite its name; it was actually produced by combining vanillin and labdanum, and presumably derives its name from the color of this combination.