Thierry Mugler is trying to reinject fantasy into the overly commercialized fragrance market with a highly unusual and innovative perfume project based on Patrick Süskind’s novel “Perfume: The Story of a Murder,” which has been turned into a movie. The result is a limited-edition box set, called the Perfume Coffret, of different fragrances that are designed to link perfumery with literature and cinema.
“I’m not sure if we’re ready for something like this yet. It’s a real olfactive voyage,” said Vera Strubi, the president of Clarins-owned Thierry Mugler Parfums who plans to resign her post at year’s end, during a recent presentation of the fragrance in New York. “Scents play an important role in the daily life of all civilizations. Today, [perfume] is seen as a fashion accessory.”
She pointed out, however, that what fragrance should do is generate emotion. “It not only gives that extra touch to a person, but it creates dreams and feelings and can release passion, delight and tenderness.” She added that it also can have the opposite effect in creating “disgust, rejection and hate.”
To take customers through this “olfactive journey” of the senses, Thierry Mugler Parfums has created a limited-edition coffret, composed of an assortment of 15 scents by fragrance supplier International Flavors & Fragrances. The mix ranges from sensual and pleasant scents to dark, dismal and disturbing fragrances, inspired by moods and themes from Süskind’s book, once an international bestseller and a cult favorite inside the industry for more than 20 years. The book has been turned into a film starring Dustin Hoffman, to be released in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 27, then rolled out to 50 cities in the first week of January. A 10-minute featurette on the making of the perfume coffret will be included in the French, German, Swiss and Austrian editions of the DVD when it comes out, according to a Clarins spokeswoman. Inclusion in the U.S. version is still under discussion.
The movie, which already has opened in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France, generated pre-launch orders: In Germany, 150 sets were reserved, while in France, 60 orders were placed in the first hour on the company Web sites. Since then, the German and French sites sold out completely.
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In the U.S., Clarins plans to begin merchandising the coffret on the Thierry Mugler Web site, perfume.thierrymugler.com, in the middle of next month and shipping merchandise in December.
In celebration of the movie, 1,500 coffrets have been created; each will retail for 550 euros, or $700. Given the number of sets produced so far, that would add up to a total volume of a little more than $1 million. Executives indicated that production could be expanded, depending on demand.
The project was initiated by the two IFF perfumers, known collectively as Les Christophs. Over the course of six years, perfumers Christophe Laudamiel and Christoph Hornetz created 14 scents out of highly descriptive passages sprinkled throughout scenes in the novel. The 15th fragrance in the set, called Aura, is designed to enhance and intensify any fragrance with which it’s worn — or it can be used by itself.
Clarins executives said Aura is being envisioned as a future freestanding launch in addition to its inclusion now in the coffret. Previously, a launch was contemplated for next year, but at press time it had not been scheduled. To ensure that Aura harmonizes with fragrances from each of the 12 main fragrance groups, the elixir’s formula contains at least one ingredient from each group. Unlike most conventional compositions, Aura is not structured according to top, middle and bottom notes. Not only is the fragrance designed to intensify other perfumes, but it was created “to create an abstract aura around a person,” said Strubi.
The fragrance set also features a 15-page leaflet explaining the inspirations and interpretations of the novel and film excerpts that inspired each of the creations. Though the coffret will not be sold through traditional retailers, Sephora will display the set of fragrances in its stores as an example of artistry to promote its overall fragrance category.
And it certainly is artistry, in the view of Strubi, who remarked: “Too often things smell the same — this gives perfumers an opportunity to work on unusual things. This is a laboratory of creativity to stimulate culture, making consumers more aware of what’s out there and [showing] what perfumers can do.”
But this is far from an esoteric exercise, as Süskind’s novel and the resulting movie is a chilling and twisted tale of serial murder. The protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, is an olfactory oddity who has a talent for fragrance conception but was born an orphan without a smell of his own, which made him stand out in 18th-century France.
Feeling isolated and yearning to connect with others, Grenouille becomes obsessed with capturing the aroma of a virgin. Immersing himself in the science of perfume-making, he takes his passion for art to the extreme, determined to create the world’s most powerful fragrance. With names such as Baby, Ermite, Human Existence and Orgie, the assortment showcases IFF’s ability to translate abstract concepts into scents, capturing the mood and tone of the novel while expanding the company’s own fragrance palette.
In the Baby fragrance, for example, the perfumers wanted to emulate the sweet-sour and milky scent of a baby’s skin with a composition of 25 different ingredients, said Laudamiel. With the help of flavorists, several variations of milky ingredients were tested, including whipped cream, Iles Flottantes or crème fraîche (a French dessert made from meringue and custard) and warm milk topped with a note of brown sugar. A pyrazine ingredient also was used for a baked-pastry aroma along with cake batter.
In the Human Existence fragrance, the perfumers attempted the passing odors of sweaty bodies, the sour odors of cheese and sides of raw meat hanging in sidewalk stalls. For this, Hornetz said they used a scent composed of natural malt absolute containing notes reminiscent of cheese, along with a laboratory-created reconstruction of civet, cumin for acridness and Skatol, a lab-developed molecule that smells like animal secretions in addition to sardines, chocolate and black currant.
Unlike most fragrance launches, Strubi notes that this particular box set targets true perfume connoisseurs and “the hearts of perfume fans.” Laudamiel saw this experience as an eye-opener from both the consumer and client standpoint. “It’s about creating certain scents that people don’t even know are possible to re-create, as well as becoming more aware of what there is to smell in the world,” said Laudamiel.
Creating a “laboratory of new ideas” has been an integral part of the brand’s advancement of perfume, exemplified in this past year’s Mugler Perfume Workshops in Paris. Although the workshops are open to the public, companies send people through the sessions’ professional training. The courses feature various themes, including the creation and history of perfume, the proper way to smell a fragrance, the biology of a scent and even cooking lessons. According to Strubi, the workshops have repeatedly sold out, reflecting consumers’ interest in educating themselves about perfume.
Strubi hinted that Thierry Mugler also has the intention of becoming a fully formed cosmetics house in the near future, meaning the possible launch of a color line. Said Strubi: “When we closed the couture line (a few years ago), we had to think about how we were going to position the house.” The first identification with Mugler is in perfume, she noted, “and maybe, later, beauty.” Strubi pointed out that whatever Mugler might decide to do in color cosmetics, it will have to be “very innovative, very creative and very different.”