KNOW THE NOSE
At one point, it was men who were behind the most famous perfumes in the world. But times they are a-changing – these are the female powerhouses behind your new favourite scent.
MYLÈNE ALRAN French-born Mylène Alran brings that chic je ne sais quoi to all of her perfume projects, most recently Absolu De Parfum, a 10th-anniversary celebration of Chloé’s signature scent (which she collaborated on with fellow nose Michel Almairac). “To me, creativity has no gender,” she says. “We have our own tastes, style and way to create, but obviously we can have affinities for a project. I have always been fascinated with the way Chloé expresses femininity in fashion.”
Like the latest Chloé scent, another of her recent recipes, Bottega Veneta Eau De Velours, offers up a healthy dose of rose. “As a raw material, it’s full of duality, easy sensuality and elegance. It’s complex and full of surprises, so it really defines femininity. It’s the timeless note and the queen of flowers,” says Alran, who echoes Shapiro’s claim that, above anything else, women today want to smell special. “The trend is to have high diffusive perfumes, regardless of the olfactive family, maybe to powerfully affirm themselves and their uniqueness,” she says. CHRISTINE NAGEL Christine Nagel is the woman behind more than 100 scents. She joined Hermès as the luxury house’s exclusive perfume creator in 2014. “I’m proud of all my perfumes, whatever their commercial success,” she says. “Each one is a standalone creation and has meant something to me. They’re the clearly defined stages in a creative process that made me who I am, each corresponding to an era, a place, a person. But the most exciting one is always the next.”
Nagel’s most recent “next” is Twilly d’hermès. “Our perfumes have French names, the bottles are classic because they draw on our heritage and are made in-house,” she says. “I’ve always felt an affinity for the house of Hermès – I’m inspired by the perfectly poised taste, the authenticity, the constant pursuit of excellence. It’s a wonderful, creative challenge. The foundations of Hermès are built not only on innovation, but also on tradition, as every creation contains a memory of the past. All of our fragrances encompass and reinvent our heritage.” For Twilly d’hermès, that mix of classic and innovative has translated into a sandalwood and tuberose-rich scent, with a kick of ginger that makes it modern and memorable. “I wanted to create something with a totally different impression, using conventional ingredients,” Nagel explains. “The quality of them is what has made the fragrance possible. The ginger, which is usually extracted dried, is extracted fresh. When I added it to the formula, the fragrance was the opposite from what you would get from ginger, and it met my expectations perfectly.”
Does she think she has any advantages as a woman creating women’s fragrances? “It’s less a question of gender than one of sensitivity, of style,” she says. “In the way I practise perfumery, there’s perhaps a tactile element, a sensitivity to the material, the feel of it, the sensuality of touching it. Is that a feminine trait? I’ll let you be the judge of that.”
When she began her fragrance career in the ’90s, Nagel’s gender was more unusual in the industry than it is today. “I belong to a generation of very few women perfumers. When I started, nothing predisposed me to this profession – I wasn’t the daughter of a perfumer, or come from Grasse, but mostly, I was a woman! Fortunately, times have changed. I’m a true enthusiast of female empowerment and am thrilled about women becoming stronger and stronger, even in fields usually dominated by men. But it’s not specific to the perfume business – it’s a universal reality. In French, the very word perfumer is used only in its masculine form, so my business card reads: Christine Nagel, Parfumeur, and not Christine Nagel, Parfumeuse. That says it all. What would be the real revolution? That it becomes a non-subject,” adds Nagel. Mic drop.
Parisian Daniela Andrier has been the nose behind scents from the likes of Bulgari, Gucci and Miu Miu, but it’s her role as the unofficial creator for Prada that has seen her deliver nearly 50 fragrances bearing the name of the Italian fashion house. “It’s a very intuitive process,” she says. “I have to understand the language and know it well enough so I can translate it. That’s how I work. I’m a translator who speaks fluent Prada.”
Her latest interpretation is La Femme Prada Intense, a stronger riff on last year’s original La Femme Prada. “It’s the scent of an unsmelled flower. It has a lot of allure. It’s not some little, polite flower. It’s sensual and yet not defined, like a Prada print. It has a lot of character, which isn’t always true of floral fragrances. That’s what I love about it.”
Andrier says it’s her sensibility more than her gender that has an influence on how she perceives femininity. “I love working with ingredients that are time-consuming and difficult to get.” The labourintensive ingredient with which she has the greatest love affair? Iris, a recurring note in many Prada fragrances as well as her recent creation for Tiffany & Co. “It’s expensive and takes a long time to obtain, but once you have it, you can go in so many different directions. It can be flowery or more profound and sensual. The buttery notes of the roots are so interesting. It’s endless and I could work with it forever.”
So what does a woman who creates them for a living think we should know about perfume? Close your eyes before you breathe in and don’t be afraid. “Pay attention to the content, rather than the envelope,” she says. “And find a way to express yourself. The differences are what makes life beautiful, more colourful, more joyful and more remarkable. Any expression that’s repetitive, I’m not interested in.”