A NOSE FOR NICHE
More and more male fragrance consumers are searching out niche or even customised scents for their personal collections. But when there are so very many choices available, how to decide?
Perfume emanates personal style, acting as an olf actory signifier of taste and individuality. Today, however, the majority men wear fragrance. A recent NPD Group survey of men’s cosmetics habits showed that 89% of U.S. men reported using scents and 46% say that they like to tr y new or different scents. Which begs this question: which EDT’s are likely to be rare, and which will you smell everywhere?
Most fragrances are produced under a license by multinational beauty conglomerates. A few luxury goods companies produce fragrances in-house. Most exclusively, there exists a small comm unity of independent perfume houses often categorised as the niche perfumer y sector. Mass-market brands are increasingly in competition with this niche sector as consumer s become more discerning. Some multinationals such as Estée Lauder have responded by purchasing welldistributed independent houses. The company stated on its latest r eport that its niche brands, including Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle and By Kilian, were one of its f astestgrowing subcategories.
Be it a mainstream, niche or niche (but owned by a big cor poration), the or igin of the commodity doesn’t resolve the problem of the wearer’s personal identity. “Which scent should represent me?” a consumer will ask. Nicolas Cloutier, co-founder of the cult store Nose (www.nose. fr/en) says: “We’re in slow retail, yet since we’re in 60 different city guides, we receive very different m al ec usto mers–arich mix ture of forward-thinking tech-savvies and curious men of every age.” He says that men ar e usually highly pragmatic. Nicolas adds: “We’re in a g rowth of 70% this y ear and are working on a new technology design edf or fastr eta ilenvir on ments – a diagnosis that could be handled in a few seconds.” Currently, Nose offers an olf active diagnosis system in which 5 perfumes are proposed from a pool of 6 50 curated possibilities - not all of them formulated for men. The fragrance of today goes beyond gender. “That’s so obvious that it is not a tr end anymore for us,” says Cloutier. “A man wearing a floral is inter esting, and I don’t think that ther e’s a lack of masculinity, I’d say rather that he has a per sonality and feels fr ee.”
In fragrance today, anything goes - as long as it’ s not the same as everything else.