At my first job, I was working for a non-profit organisation and our committee had been invited to a wealthy benefactor's mansion. I was 23 years old with an innocent incapacity to conceal my thoughts. Upon first greeting our benefactor, I not only told her she had the largest home I'd ever seen, but that she smelled absolutely fantastic. She merely blinked at the room, but what she really wanted to discuss was her perfume.
She had been an 'expat' (It was the first time I had heard that word, and wasn't sure what it meant. It sounded very close to the word 'exotic' and I was starting to feel a little out of my league) in Switzerland, and a French perfumer made the scent just for her. Her perfumer had explained that each scent reacts differently on each person and he knew how to bring out the most pleasing scent for her body.
I was mesmerised. Her very own perfume. Although the scent of my mother's perfumes brought comfort, this scent was the essence of this woman. I knew I wanted my own perfume. She warned me that having a custom-created perfume was very expensive. I needed to find out what this expat thing was all about.
The master perfumer who created the fragrance for her was following a tradition that can be traced back to ancient Egypt, when essential oils were first used for religious purposes and healing. Nowadays, from marketing brief to bejewelled bottle, creating a perfume is a collaborative effort.
Perfumes begin as an abstract concept of an emotion or ideal (redemption, seduction, playfulness, sometimes with a storyline) that will become the scent's soul. The client approaches a perfumerie and requests a scent along the lines of their concept, also including the maximum production price per litre. The master perfumer, 'the nose', will work with a team to develop a few briefs and secure the deal. For the next two to sometimes four years, the team will work on developing and fine-tuning the fragrance that will best deliver the client's message.
You might imagine the 'noses' behind the products to be as mysterious and nuanced as the perfumes they create, but Jacques Polge, the legendary perfumer who has been at the helm of Chanel's perfume business for more than 25 years, is more like a fashionable scientist who favours black cashmere sweaters to lab coats and pocket protectors.