Last week, after my conference in Paris about the Russian perfumes, I participated at several meetings about cosmetics, perfumes and new products to be launched on the market in 2012-2013. Among them, the highly exclusive Firmenich Olfactive Design, now at the 11th edition called "Save the Future", opened the gates of the 8th ART with a new vision about perfume and creation. In 1997 Firmenich started a new and highly visionary tool designed exclusively for their clients and rarely featured in the press. These perfumes are secrets of the trade and only few noses on the world have the privilege to smell them. 3 years ago, I was at Firmenich for an interview and during a conversation I gently asked a question about a perfume from the 9th edition. I was gently refused.
Fragrance companies had started at least 3 decades earlier the extensive study of the market, creating the first modern tools for creation - genealogies, diagrams, trend notebooks. Unfortunately, none of them was available to the public and none of them can be found in any public library as they contained what was considered in those years secret information (or highly expensive). But it was only with the 90's, with the emergence of a new generation and a new vision about art, fashion and design that these type of prospective tools became rather different. The focus on creation (no price limit and less recognizable market profiles) became the center of a changing world. Companies like Firmenich, Givaudan, IFF, later Symrise, wanted to promote creation, new accords and new ingredients and they had the new tools to present them to their clients. But it was also the time when most of the brands in the perfume industry got bigger than ever. Creation and reinvention were somehow in a contrast with the spectacular economical growth. The birth of the niche houses is not without a relation to the "creative bubbling" that took place in some perfume houses. Remember that some of the creators of several successful niche brands worked in the marketing dept of either cosmetic groups or fragrance houses. They saw how many new ideas suddenly emerged, but these new notes were rarely picked up by big brands or were too much transformed. Of course, some stories will never hit the public ear because it would destroy all the mysterious aura behind some very respected brands and the origin of several revered modern creations.
With the 11th edition of their Olfactive Design Firmenich unveiled a major work, an opus containing about 70 perfume submissions of their great creators arranged in a best off , around 4 main ideas that would define the spirit of the future.
Not exactly accords, not exactly perfumes, but a sublime hybrid where creative ideas, sometime avant-garde, were translated in compositions with a highly wearable and addictive factor. Because many of these creations contain captive molecules, which I recognized instantly as Firmenich is known for their haute couture molecules and new naturals, I will not give a clear description. Some information should remain secret on Internet because there is too much misappropriation and the work of a perfumer is not protected.
Firmenich focused the attention on emotion and highly developed concepts. Their installation could be anytime exhibited at Palais de Tokyo as an example of contemporary art. Both the conceptual work and the perfumes are the ultimate proof that not recognizing perfume as an art in 2011 is the sign of Ignorance (a religion with an alarming number of adepts).
The 4 themes were: Dare to change (and positive activism), Life at first sight, Call of nature (and Land Art), HighTech Romance (and hybrid thinking).
Captive molecules from the citrus, aldehydic, woody, fruity and floral families were interlaced with new proprietary natural extractions. I immediately fell in love with a Chinese plant never used before in perfumes, exclusively produced for Firmenich and a totally new distillation of a very classic exotic flower found in No5. It is a natural that became extremely trendy recently as Givaudan has also its new exclusive version.
I was completely under the spell of 4 perfumes, all with an amazing structure, and an extremely original approach, whether it was a classic structure (revisited) or a totally new accord never expressed before.
Albertissime (Alberto Morillas) takes a classic perfume idea, with an unusual interpretation of the rose, and creates the essence of the sacred in a totally futuristic context, using new "top note" musks and a white galactic creaminess. It is majestic in its purity and shows the work of the perfumer (seen in one commercial creation and a recent experimental fragrance) who brings 2 opposite universes on the olfactory scale in communion. It suggests emptiness where the main accord is "atomized" like a powder between 2 very precise molecules. A painting from Salvador Dali explains what happens inside this perfume with a very classic accord.
Mon Coeur fait bloom (Daphné Bugey) reinvents the floral family with a type of facet that has never been used before but is highly important in the scent of many florals. Smell a daphné flower and you will immediately have the hologram of this extremely original note where softness and pungency, attraction and surprise are woven with extreme delicacy. It is a strange beauty.
Argile (Oliver Cresp) brings the tactile and the texture of the clay at the heart of the creation, deep, addictive, and mysterious as any scent archetype. It has a profound effect as it speaks about one of the oldest form of creation. We forgot its scent, but our soul responds to the call of the ancestry as it is the case for other notes that shaped our civilization. The perfumer molds the invisible air and our emotions, while the sculptor gives shape to the clay. With Argile, Olivier Cresp brings together the scent, the texture of one of the oldest art - pottery. We are back in Sumer where clay tablets were keeping the volatile thoughts of an ancient civilization like the perfumer writes in a drop the oldest human emotions we carry in our cultural DNA.
Beyond reality (Alberto Morillas) is truly a perfume from another dimension with no fingerprint in our world. It seems to be familiar but it alters completely the senses through its hybrid depiction. Truly an avant-garde idea, it is like a plastic flower in the hand of a plastic doll that starts to breathe by miracle. The limits between natural and artificial are blurred.
The most important idea of this new edition of the Firmenich Olfactive Studio was the need for a significant change and a new paradigm for the perfume. Beyond seduction, but also beyond the false opposition natural-artificial, the 11th edition of the Firmenich creative studio sets the perfumer at the center of his art and the perfume as a powerful ingredient of the civilization. It is pleasure but also intellectual pleasure, desire but also the desire for new scent territories and innovation. There is nothing more "artificial" than the odor of the fractions of natural ingredients and there is nothing more "natural" than the molecules invented in the lab with no correspondent in Nature. I believe we are at the end of an era called the "Natural dictatorship".
Beyond the general theme expressed by each creation and the use of new proprietary ingredients, some with astronomic prices, several fragrances showed a completely new aesthetic approach, several concepts rarely explored (there are 2 new gourmand accords) and some structures that are not very often seen and reveal their innovative element only upon a closer examination.
I hope one day big labs like Firmenich, Givaudan and IFF would open their amazing creations to the world through small workshops. If you like something you can place an order. All you need is a robot to mix the ingredients and a post office. This is the ultimate luxury, wearing a work of art, with no price limit, no brand behind. It is just the work of the perfumer you will choose during an annual exhibition in Paris. Brands are for the masses, artists are for individuals.
Among the special ingredients from Firmenich I can think about 2 new naturals, captive ingredients from Chinese pharmacopea. One is Periploca sepium (chinese silk vine from Asclepiadaceae family with notes of green cucumber, mimosa, cassie, violet leaves, spinach) the other is Evodia daniellii (honey bee tree from Rutaceae family with a green herbal tagette, chamomile, petitgrain, clary sage.
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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
