The Bite Magazine - Summer 2012 - Issue 5

bite bookreviews T o many women, perfume symbolises glamour, beauty and sensuality, and in the mysterious multibillion-pound industry, Jean-Claude Ellena is a celebrated master. In ‘Perfume:The Alchemy of Scent,’ the exclu- sive in-house perfumer to Hermès and the inventor of fragrances such as Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert for Bulgari, First fromVan Cleef and Arpels, and Declaration for Cartier, re- veals the secrets behind the art and busi- ness of creating perfume. Ellena, who lives and works in Grasse, the French capital of perfumery, covers MOYETTE MARRETT REVIEWS ‘PERFUME: THE ALCHEMY OF SCENT BY JEAN-CLAUDE ELLENA. The odour of green tea becomes a sign for Japan, flour signals skin, and mango signifies Egypt.” In 2005, a stroll through a garden island on the Nile inspired Ellena to create the Hermès scent Un Jardin Sur le Nil. He says the idea came to him in an alley of mango trees. “The odour seduced me. A heavy profusion of fragrant images, of resins, of orange peel, of grapefruit, of juniper, an odour that was sweet and sour, vivid and mild. I gave into it, let the odour caress my senses and take possession of me.” A century ago, perfumers relied on natural ingredients such as jasmine blos- som, carnation petals, musk and citrus peel to create new scents. But in recent times, the International Fragrance Association has banned many ingredients mainly because a small percentage of people are allergic to them. New technologies and changing con- sumer tastes, however, have led to a fresh set of aromas, including pink pepper ber- ries, magnolia flower, absolutes of sambac jasmine and substances used to flavour teas and drinks. Today the creation of a perfume usu- ally starts with a brief for an imagined new scent given to the perfumer by the perfume house. Most houses are based in France and America, with LVMH, the Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy Group, Chanel, Hermès, L’Oréal and Estée Lauder among the largest companies. Ellena believes this modern day system of the perfumer acting as a supplier to a perfume house’s heavily researched brief “has distanced perfumers from their own senses and curtailed their creativity.” The inventor of Un Jardin en Mediter- ranée, also for Hermès, describes how he personally chooses and creates a new scent. “Is the odour a new one? If not, can it re- place an existing fragrance more cheaply, with comparable or even superior technical performance? Does it extend the olfactory range to which it belongs?” “While the quality of a substance can contribute to the originality of a fragrance, a ‘fine’ jasmine, a ‘fine’ rose or a ‘fine’ synthetic molecule does not make a fine perfume.The beauty of a perfume does not arise from the sum of the qualities of the raw materials but from the harmony of the materials, the way they are used, juxtaposed and given expres- sion,” Ellena concludes. every aspect of the industry from the mix- ing of essences and synthetic elements to the finished product, including the creation, production, marketing and trade-marking of a fragrance. He describes his nose as “nothing more than a measuring instrument” and his role as “a pilferer, a thief, a scavenger of odours.” He goes on to say,“For me, nature is a pre- text – a starting point and not a source, of inspiration or creative insight. To create is to interpret odours by changing them into signs and for these signs to convey meaning. ‘Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent’ by Jean-Claude Ellena is published by Arcade Publishing, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing Inc. www.arcadepub.com Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent by Jean-Claude Ellena Images courtesy of Constable & Robinson