Frédéric Malle believes in developing perfumes which are expensive luxury products that last

Perfumer

A good fragrance is the result of much effort, expertise and carefully chosen ingredients. The product is not something you necessarily splash about, or wear, every day. Maybe if you're of limited means, you only wear it on Sundays and love it, not every day and forget it.

I wish there was a greater general understanding of fragrance … A good fragrance is a luxury, and luxury is not cheap. But it lasts.

Frédéric Malle has a strong opinion about your perfume, and he isn't afraid to voice it.

"It's not real perfumery, what we've had over recent decades," he says. "So it is with a feeling of triumph somehow that [global perfume houses] are all going bust. And it's well-deserved. They have been spoiling the business for years."

Whether you agree with his statement or not, the vocal perfumer does have an extensive background in the business. Malle was born into fragrance. He wore Eau Sauvage, the ground-breaking fragrance his mother helped develop when she worked as art director for Christian Dior. His maternal grandfather, Serge Heftler-Louiche, launched Dior's fragrance business. And Malle, arguably, has done more to change the fragrance industry than both.

Tired of the mass-marketed, celebrity-driven, poor-quality direction in which the business was going, he launched Editions de Parfums 15 years ago. The idea was radical: he would work with some of the most famed "noses" around the world and give them carte blanche to create whatever fragrance they wanted, for whatever the price and however long it took.

Malle would work more as an editor - translating concepts into scents, lending his experience to the process - and then as a publisher, getting that fragrance, however atypical, into the market. Packaging was minimal. Marketing was nonexistent. Nobody said if the fragrance was for men or women, or anyone in particular. And, despite this counter-intuitive approach, it worked. Recent years have seen the wider industry ape Malle's way, typically by acquiring smaller, boutique or historic operations that have launched since - indeed, earlier this year Editions de Parfums was bought by Lauder.

"The big groups know the market is returning to true luxury, and they also know the only way to that is to really work with people who are experts in that field," he says, adding that he didn't have the courage to go on in the industry as it was. "I wasn't compromised half as much as the perfumers who had no time to develop their art and no money either, because that all went to the celebrities who fronted the fragrances. The noses all worked under the shadow of focus groups. It had become all about image and a one-size-fits-all mentality."