Chandler Burr's questionnaires: With a nod to Proust, it's all about perfumes. Discover the protagonists of the sixth episode!
The column curated by Chandler Burr, perfume critic and artistic director of Pitti Fragranze, is dedicated to five great noses who launched their perfume collections. Which ones?
Lucien Ferrero and Olivier Durbano have created two eponymous niche collections; Pedro Simões Dias is the founder and creative director of Comporta; Pissara Umavijani is the nose behind Dusita Parfums; and Sonia Constant founded her brand Ella K. Read the interviews.
Lucien Ferrero
No, I was not born in a cabbage, but in a field of roses – it was La Forza del Destino since my life has been dedicated to perfumes and to the true happiness of our 12 senses
1 What quality do you most admire in other people?
Intelligence
2 What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Pity
3 What is your greatest strength?
Believing in a tomorrow that sings
4 What do you dislike most about yourself?
Impatience
5 What makes you happiest?
My closest friends and family
6 What is your greatest fear?
The decrepitude of old age
7 Which living person do you most despise?
TRUMP
8 What is your greatest extravagance?
Improvising “Au Clair de la Lune” on a Steinway piano
9 When do you lie?
To give hope
10 Why did you choose to create in the art medium of scent?
I didn’t choose. These are the places life leads us, and I’m very happy about that
11 Who are the architect, the musician or group, and the film director whose artistic style and aesthetics most closely resemble yours?
The ancient Roman architects
12 Which scent raw material can you not live without?
Sandalwood essential oil
13 Which scent raw material do you never use?
Methylacetophenone
14 What is your favorite perfume of your own?
Par Amour Pour Elle
15 What is your favorite perfume not your own?
The original Eau Sauvage by Edmond Roudnitska
16 If you had to choose in another person: bad breath or bad body odor?
Bad breath
17 Which city or place smells the best?
The Taj in Agra – a bouquet of tuberose
18 Of all your time at Fragranze, what aspect has most surprised or interested you?
Knowing that each new day brings the discovery of unexpected scents
19 What do you most want that you could get if you had enough money?
Giving access to clean water to all human beings
20 What do you most want that money cannot buy?
Health
Olivier Durbano
Olivier Durbano was born on the Côte d'Azur and studied architecture in Lyon. He has had a fascination for stones since the age of four, and in 2004 he began creating a Grasse-made stone-inspired fragrance collection
1 What quality do you most admire in other people?
Kindness, more and more
2 What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
All virtues are beautiful horizons to move towards
3 What is your greatest strength?
Intuition
4 What do you dislike most about yourself?
Seeing injustice makes me go crazy
5 What makes you happiest?
Joy in others
6 What is your greatest fear?
I work hard to get rid of all my fears
7 Which living person do you most despise?
None. To despise someone else would be to despise myself
8 What is your greatest extravagance?
Freedom, according to my own definition, of course
9 When do you lie?
Rarely, to keep from hurting someone else’s feelings
10 Why did you choose to create in the art medium of scent?
It felt completely clear to me that the invisibility of this art medium was something I had to work with
11 Who are the architect, the musician or group, and the film director whose artistic style and aesthetics most closely resemble yours?
I don’t think in terms of resemblance. I think I unconsciously pull inspiration from everywhere, works of art, the lives of the artists, from remarkable places…
12 Which scent raw material can you not live without?
Incense
13 Which scent raw material do you never use?
The prohibited ones
14 What is your favorite perfume of your own?
SpeM PetraM, stone of hope, the 15th of my collection
15 What is your favorite perfume not your own?
It will be the connection between a perfume and a person. Like a revelation
16 If you had to choose in another person: bad breath or bad body odor?
For me, the worst is bad breath
17 Which city or place smells the best?
Saint Honorat Island and the Monastery in the Bay of Cannes
18 Of all your time at Fragranze, what aspect has most surprised or interested you?
Aesthetics in all the senses, from the human to the artistic
19 What do you most want that you could get if you had enough money?
I would turn money into good
20 What do you most want that money cannot buy?
Connection, alignment, unity
Pedro Simões Dias
Pedro Simões Dias is the founder and creative director of the exclusive niche collection Comporta. He is based in Lisbon.
1 What quality do you most admire in other people?
Beauty because it is always a type of intelligence
2 What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Sincerity
3 What is your greatest strength?
The ability to read people. The first 5 seconds are crucial. But sometimes I fail
4 What do you dislike most about yourself?
My memory
5 What makes you happiest?
I am a post-modern guy in the worst sense of the term. I butterfly on happy moments
6 What is your greatest fear?
Not to meet expectations
7 Which living person do you most despise?
I love people. There are two or three people who have stopped talking to me, but I still work on loving them
8 What is your greatest extravagance?
My high-end sound system
9 When do you lie?
I almost never lie. Not because I am virtuous, but because it is very difficult to design a good lie and even more difficult to keep it fresh in the long term
10 Why did you choose to create in the art medium of scent?
I used to seek out perfumes from all kinds of perfumeries. I bought hundreds of bottles, asked so many questions. One day a rising perfumer said to be “Why don’t you create a Portuguese brand? There are none.” So I creative directed him in making two perfumes, and that’s how I started
11 Who are the architect, the musician or group, and the film director whose artistic style and aesthetics most closely resemble yours?
Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Marvin Gaye, Michael Mann
12 Which scent raw material can you not live without?
I never think about raw materials as I am always chasing integrated scents. But personally I really like violet, iris and saffron
13 Which scent raw material do you never use?
Calone. Although I should never say never. I also hate the smell of strawberries and of peachy lactones
14 What is your favorite perfume of your own?
Ocaso. I truly believe its complexity, multiple facets, coherence, and balance make it the hallmark white flowers niche perfume
15 What is your favorite perfume not your own?
Invasion Barbare by Stephanie Bakouche for MDCI
16 If you had to choose in another person: bad breath or bad body odor?
Bad Breath. Everybody has it at least once in a lifetime
17 Which city or place smells the best?
Two Brazilian beaches: Tibau do Sul in Rio Grande do Norte and Trancoso, Bahia
18 Of all your time at Fragranze, what aspect has most surprised or interested you?
The best moment so far has been meeting Michael Edwards. But what interests me most is that Fragranze continues to support truly niche perfume brands when the market (and other perfumes shows) are becoming more interested in the big, anchor niche brands
19 What do you most want that you could get if you had enough money?
Not having to work
20 What do you most want that money cannot buy?
I already have it: my wife’s smile
Pissara Umavijani
Pissara Umavijani, born in Thailand and Paris-based, is a perfumer who created Dusita Parfums. She has just opened the Dusita boutique at 11 Rue de la Sourdière
1 What quality do you most admire in other people?
Compassion
2 What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Success
3 What is your greatest strength?
Perseverance
4 What do you dislike most about yourself?
Being easily distracted
5 What makes you happiest?
Kissing my Yorkies
6 What is your greatest fear?
Trypophobia
7 Which living person do you most despise?
Dictators
8 What is your greatest extravagance?
A comfortable home and exotic succulents
9 When do you lie?
When there is no time to do otherwise
10 Why did you choose to create in the art medium of scent?
To express the poetic world of my belated father, Montri
11 Who is the film director whose artistic style and aesthetics most closely resemble yours?
Wong Kar-wai
12 Which scent raw material can you not live without?
Vanilla Absolute from Madagascar
13 Which scent raw material do you never use?
Amber Xtreme
14 What is your favorite perfume of your own?
Oudh Infini
15 What is your favorite perfume not your own?
Chamade Extrait by Guerlain
16 If you had to choose in another person: bad breath or bad body odor?
I would prefer a dog
17 Which city or place smells the best?
The morning flower market (Pak Klong Talaad) of Bangkok, Thailand
18 Of all your time at Fragranze, what aspect has most surprised or interested you?
The adventurous aspect of natural scents combined together
19 What do you most want that you could get if you had enough money?
A secluded home near the lake
20 What do you most want that money cannot buy?
Mindfulness
Sonia Constant
Sonia Constant is a perfumer at Givaudan. She has created for, among others, Tom Ford, Simone Cosac, Armani, Philippe di Meo, and Narciso Rodriguez. In 2017 she founded her own brand Ella K
1 What quality do you most admire in other people?
Kindness
2 What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Intelligence because it is often used to manipulate people or to serve its own interests and rarely for the good of our planet
3 What is your greatest strength?
My intuition. It’s often right
4 What do you dislike most about yourself?
My awkwardness
5 What makes you happiest?
Love
6 What is your greatest fear?
Pollution
7 Which living person do you most despise?
Mean people
8 What is your greatest extravagance?
My freedom. Notably the freedom I found in creating Ella K. But also in life in general
9 When do you lie?
To avoid hurting someone
10 Why did you choose to create in the art medium of scent?
Because with it I can both create artistically and understand how scents are created. When I was small, my third word after papa and maman was flower, and I went from flower to flower to smell them
11 Who are the architect, the musician or group, and the film director whose artistic style and aesthetics most closely resemble yours?
Wong Kar-wai, above all In The Mood for Love. Charlotte Perriand. Shigeru Umebayashi, especially for Yumeji’s theme in In The Mood For Love
12 Which scent raw material can you not live without?
Ambrofix 100% natural from Givaudan. It’s in all my creations. I’m a crazy overdoser
13 Which scent raw material do you never use?
None. Or maybe some synthetic with a crazy name that won’t mean anything to anyone. Azurone, for example
14 What is your favorite perfume of your own?
Cri du Kalahari for ELLA K
15 What is your favorite perfume not your own?
Féminité du Bois
16 If you had to choose in another person: bad breath or bad body odor?
Body odor. But I’d prefer not to have to choose
17 Which city or place smells the best?
Singapore National Park. It’s filled with the scent of orchids. For a moment I thought I was in heaven
18 Of all your time at Fragranze, what aspect has most surprised or interested you?
Reinventing oneself every day. Fragranze is a continual push into aesthetics that follows no logical rules. It’s the intuitive aspect of my craft
19 What do you most want that you could get if you had enough money?
To give it those who don’t have any
20 What do you most want that money cannot buy?
More justice, honesty, and transparency in the world, and less ego
