Credit
Emily Andrews for The New York Times
If there were fragrance royalty, Frédéric Malle, the founder of Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, would have a title. His grandfather Serge Heftler-Louiche founded Parfums Christian Dior, and his mother, Marie-Christine Sayn-Wittgenstein, worked at Dior for 47 years and helped create Eau Sauvage. But it took Mr. Malle quite some time, with detours into art dealing and advertising, before he claimed his sweetly scented birthright. After learning the trade at the perfume house Roure Bertrand Dupont, he struck out on his own in 2000. His brand is based on a unique model: It functions like a publishing house, with Mr. Malle, 54, as the editor and the perfumers the authors. This month he is introducing his first men’s grooming products, a shaving cream ($80) and an after-shave balm ($120), both made in his Vetiver Extraordinaire scent. He spoke with Men’s Style at his Madison Avenue office in Manhattan.
Credit
Emily Andrews for The New York Times
How do you begin a new perfume?
I used to make mood boards. They were very specific, and I often used my art history background, and they were meant to trigger a perfumer’s imagination. But today I don’t do them. I start with a conversation.
After the initial conversation, what’s next?
It’s a very rational process. The perfumer submits options, and you smell these things in a very concentrated way. You always have this back and forth between your perceptions, or what you might call your gut feelings, and then this technical side. Maybe I can say, “Oh, I liked this flower, but you should put more aldehyde and less of that.” This is the way I work, because I am very technical. This is my strong point and my weakness. There are a lot of creative directors out there, but I would say 99 percent of them, they don’t have this technical background. Most of them will say something like, “It’s too sweet.”
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For the new men’s grooming line, why pick Vetiver Extraordinaire out of all your scents?
I made this fragrance because this was going to be the ideal Vetiver for myself. I project much more of myself in the men’s fragrances of the line. For women’s, I often think of someone in my life; it’s a way to stay on track.
What of the unisex movement in fragrance, though? I could see women wearing Vetiver.
My goal when I started the brand in 2000 was to do the exact opposite of the market. I decided to eliminate the image associated with the fragrance. When you think about the perfume market, it’s extremely focused on sex. Think about Obsession, which had a fragrance for women and one for men. You had an ad saying, “Girl, if you wear this, every man will run after you.” And then you had an ad saying: “Oh, Monsieur! If you wear this, every girl will run after you.” Except they were almost the same fragrance! What happened was, Musc Ravageur, a most sensuous thing I associated with a sexy girl, was being bought by men, gay and straight. Or the customers who are buying Portrait of a Lady, about 40 percent of them are men.
The other extreme is CK One or, for us, Cologne Bigarade, which sort of says, “I’m squeaky clean.” You’re not talking about sex there. You’re just talking about being groomed and feeling that way for an entire day. These also work for both men and women. So, yes, more and more people talk about unisex, but, in fact, it was only imagery that was added. These are old rules. We’re living in a much more gender-fluid society today.
