THE SMELL OF MONEY
Louis Vuitton taps into desire for `uber luxury' with new bespoke fragrance service
There's a certain romance to the idea of a bespoke scent: the complexities of a character aromatically expressed. Generally they are the preserve of niche perfumers, but now luxury mega brand Louis Vuitton is aiming to take the trial-and-error out of finding that dream olfactory match with its new custom-tailored fragrance service. From a mere $100,000 Canadian.
“When you are out of the room, they will say, `She was there',” says Vuitton master perfumer Jacques Cavallier Belletrud of what he hopes to achieve.
The amiable creator of such bestsellers as Jean Paul Gaultier Classique and L'eau D'issey, who joined Vuitton in 2012, is talking to me over Zoom from his atelier in Grasse, the historic home of perfumery on the French Riviera.
I, meanwhile, am stationed in the personal shopping rooms of Vuitton's Bond Street flagship in London, next to an upright leather case containing 97 little glass bottles of raw scents from rose to Oud Assam. This “Malle de Consultation” resembles a chic take on a 19th-century apothecary's travelling trunk of medicine vials.
In an ideal (NON-COVID) world, I would have travelled to Grasse for a consultation with Cavallier Belletrud — a standard part of the bespoke service offered to clients. His workshop is within the elegant, plant-filled Les Fontaines Parfumées estate, purchased by Vuitton in 2013 as a base for its perfume creation. The service launches in January, and because of travel restrictions it's likely many consultations will take place over Zoom, with the client going to their nearest Vuitton store to smell different ingredients as they talk to Cavallier Belletrud. It takes around a year to receive the finished result.
“What kind of cooking do you like? What is the best memory of your childhood? Why do you wear perfume? What perfume do you hate?” I'm trying to answer these questions as Cavallier Belletrud demonstrates his process and it turns out to be quite soul-searching. Good luck to anyone trying to make sense (or indeed scents) of my nostalgia for the smell of dark wood furniture, a loathing of Thierry Mugler's Angel, a liking for Thai food and crumpets and a sudden inability to recall which smells I like beyond French pharmacy moisturizer Embryolisse Lait-crème Concentré, Orange Blossom by Jo Malone and Caleche by Hermès. “Maybe the perfume will reveal some parts of you that you don't know,” says Cavallier Belletrud.
We start smelling some ingredients, which are noticeably more delicious and evocative than most perfume-counter products. “The quality of the ingredients we put in our perfumes is much higher than the competition and I know that because I have worked for the competition,” says Cavallier Belletrud. The Jasmine Absolute costs about $210,000 per kilo and the Oud Assam is $56,000 per kilo.
It transpires that I love cassis (blackcurrant), which as Cavallier Belletrud says “is fruity but not sticky, and makes a perfume dance.” And jasmine, which smells like no jasmine I'm familiar with: it's much subtle and less cloying. He used supercritical CO2 extraction (previously not used on fresh flowers) whereby plants are bathed in cold gas to preserve the purity of the real flower. The vanilla is similarly fresh and refined: cosy, but not cupcake. And of course there is Leather Infusion, made from the natural leather used on the handles of Vuitton's trunks. “It's quite rude, wild and dirty,” says Cavallier Belletrud, “but in very small amounts it brings sophistication. You won't smell like a trunk.”
The launch of a bespoke fragrance service has more consistency with Vuitton's overall business than just a tannery whiff, however. It taps into the service and personalization that is a priority for the house, which has designed bespoke trunks for sneakers, DJ equipment and cocktail kits.
“Personalization today is the key to luxury and it will be the key tomorrow, especially in perfume when there are so many perfumes launched. We see a lot of clients, men and women, complaining that all perfumes smell the same. My goal is to deliver something like haute couture, something without limits, which today is the mission of the luxury brand,” says Cavallier Belletrud.
The couture price tag includes several consultations, your custom scent, which, in an impressive show of faith in the longevity of luxury, is guaranteed to be available forever, and a personalized trunk holding four 100 ml bottles, three 200 ml, a 100 ml travel case and multiple smaller travel sprays of varying sizes (one for each home/car/jet). Just don't think about the cost per spritz.
“We all know that wealth is concentrating,” explains Louis Vuitton chief executive Michael Burke on a call. “Today the luxury players that are doing well are the ones who have played the card of ultimate luxury ... Those in the middle who want to be everything to everybody, those are the houses that are suffering right now. Customization is part of that uber luxury.”
Presumably this intimate service will also give Vuitton invaluable insights into its highest-spending clients. “That's what I consider market research,” says Burke. He believes that there is “a real need” for personal relationships between house and clients. “We have very few people who buy only one trunk,” he says. “Some people buy one every birthday, others buy a whole new set when they get divorced. Made-to-order has the highest growth rate of anything we do.”
Will this new bespoke fragrance service itself make money? “Everything is profitable at Vuitton,” says Burke. “We don't believe in doing businesses just for PR purposes. If you do that you will never make money, and at the end of the day if something does not make money there is something wrong with the product. Every product has to be desirable.” The
For me, the first rule is to create something with a lot of sophistication. When you take off your clothes, you are still wearing your perfume.
company's existing fragrance line, relaunched in 2016, is “a significant part (of sales) at Vuitton, more than we expected. It is the most affordable object you can purchase in the store,” he says.
At $350 for a fragrance such as Le Jour se Lève (a deliciously fresh mix of mandarin, jasmine and blackcurrant), they are already at the high end — in a similar price range to Tom Ford's Private Blend and Chanel's Les Exclusifs ranges, which helped spearhead the rise of prestige fragrances. Burke says that a few years ago “everybody” asked him why the brand was “spending so much effort and so much money on something that's only going to work in Europe, and a bit in America. It turns out that a third of our perfume business is in Asia.”
Vuitton is clearly looking to build its reputation in the fragrance world, where it doesn't have the heritage of, say, Chanel or Dior. However, Burke denies that the brand's reputation is less stellar in the field.
“The jewelry business pooh-poohed Louis Vuitton's desire to become a fully fledged jeweller, and lo and behold here we are, we have earned our place on Place Vendôme,” he declares. “We hired the best designer (Francesca Amfitheatrof ), just like Jacques is recognized as one of the most creative noses in the industry. The scents Jacques came out with originally were for people who had bought everything else before. They were not easy florals, they were quite amazing compositions, like music. Some were quite niche but that's what you do when you are a perfumer not a marketer.”
“For me, the first rule is to create something with a lot of sophistication,” says Cavallier Belletrud. As befits someone steeped in high luxury, who regards cost as just part of the small print, he says, “feelings and emotions are not a matter of money. When you take off your clothes, you are still wearing your perfume.”