This sumptuous, large-format book, featuring the illustrations of contemporary Greek painter Konstantin Kakanias, explores the art of perfumery and the stellar array of perfumers Malle has brought to his house during his first decade.
Born into the world of perfume (his grandfather was the founder of Parfums Christian Dior), Frédéric Malle's deep knowledge of scents and his radical vision of perfumes led him, in 2000, to establish Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, a house for perfumers where fragrances are conceived as haute couture creations. At a time when the self-service sale of perfumes was on the rise, Malle chose to open a boutique that would provide a luxurious setting for the perfumes he "publishes" with the world's greatest perfumers. Malle's determination has been to champion the art of perfumery itself, granting perfumers total and complete freedom to create, furnishing them with exceptional raw materials and releasing all boundaries and constraints, restoring the art of perfume making to its former glory. This October, to mark the twentieth anniversary of Frédéric Malle's quest for beauty and creative freedom, Rizzoli will publish Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle: The First Twenty Years. A necessary addition to the libraries of industry masters, this volume is an exploration of the inspirations and vision of one of the great protagonists of contemporary perfume. 2020 marks a historic date for the house: twenty years of audacity and creativity. Twenty years of shifting paradigms in the exacting world of perfumery. In Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle: The First Twenty Years, Malle offers readers an intimate glimpse into his brand's saga and shares the stories behind four of his most successful scents in graphic-novel form. Journalist Marion Vignal delves into Malle's lifelong devotion to perfume, personal history, and myriad inspirations to uncover the evolution of his precise olfactory aesthetics, while imagery of perfume bottles, sketches, advertising campaigns, and photos of boutiques explores his comprehensive vision. With art direction by Patrick Li, the book features an eclectic palette of imagery from the personal archives of the founder, as well as illustrations, unique sketches and authentic stories about Malle's collaboration with Perfumers. Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle: The First Twenty Years is an invitation to a sensorial journey that will delight perfume lovers everywhere. This volume invites faithful connoisseurs of haute perfumery and lovers of fine craftsmanship alike to join in celebrating an authentic, audacious, exacting, and rich brand.
'An authoritative guide from two experts who really know their way around scent' – FUNMI FETTO The Perfume Companion is a beautifully illustrated compendium of almost 500 recommended scents, designed to help you pick out your next favourite fragrance. Perfumes have the power to evoke treasured memories, make us feel fabulous and help us express our best self. But with so many out there, how do you choose something new? When the scents in the perfume shop are merging into one aromatic haze, how do you remain focused? And if your favourite scent goes out of stock, how do you replace it? The Perfume Companion is here to help. Sarah McCartney and Samantha Scriven deliver a host of scents for you to try – including bargain finds and luxury treasures, iconic stalwarts and indie newcomers, the lightest florals and the deepest leathers. With insider information about how perfumes are really made, discover hundreds of new fragrances and find the scents to share your own memories with. This is the perfect companion for your scented adventures.
Hermès’ longtime master perfumer offers a rare glimpse into the mysterious, intoxicating world of creating luxury perfume. How does one capture the essence of emotions, of desire . . . in a scent? A scent has incantatory powers, capable of transporting you to your past, of kindling fantasies, of creating a vivid mise en scène—literally out of thin air. In the hands of the truly great, perfume creation is a kind of alchemy. Jean-Claude Ellena has a sublime gift. As parfumeur exclusif—or “the nose”—for Hermès, he elevates fragrance to an art form. A “writer of perfume,” his concoctions are as finely composed and evocative as a haiku. He is also a conjurer of sorts: “I create an illusion that is actually stronger than reality . . . you enter the scent and follow the path.” The Diary of a Nose is a collection of Ellena’s meditations on the world of scents, and what stirs his creation of some of the world’s most desired fragrances. Inspiration can come from anywhere—a market stall, a landscape, or even the movement of calligraphy. Though each smell has its own distinct character, a gifted perfumer creates olfactory experiences that are intensely personal and unique, that blossom on the body and leave a trace of us lingering after we have left a room. Seductive, delicate, and elegant as any of Ellena’s creations, The Diary of a Nose seeks to capture the most elusive facets of this rarefied and mysterious art.
As the world's leading perfume authority, Dove leads readers on an extravagant journey through the world of scent, from Ancient Egypt to the present. Beginning with a comprehensive discussion of the sense of smell and the materials of the master perfumer, Dove goes on to celebrate the great classics, the makers who brought them to life and the bottle makers who gave them shape.
Here, Tessa Williams documents more than 25 perfumeries and brands, ranging from the pharmacy of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, established by Dominican friars in 1221, and the classic English company Floris, founded in 1730, to the new eponymous range created by the famed fragrance expert Roja Dove.
Winner of the 2016 Perfumed Plume Award The “Alice Waters of American natural perfume” (indieperfume.com) and author of the Art of Flavor celebrates our most potent sense, through five rock stars of the fragrant world Mandy Aftel is widely acclaimed as a trailblazer in natural perfumery. Over two decades of sourcing the finest aromatic ingredients from all over the world and creating artisanal fragrances, she has been an evangelist for the transformative power of scent. In Fragrant, through five major players in the epic of aroma, she explores the profound connection between our sense of smell and the appetites that move us, give us pleasure, make us fully alive. Cinnamon, queen of the Spice Route, touches our hunger for the unknown, the exotic, the luxurious. Mint, homegrown the world over, speaks to our affinity for the familiar, the native, the authentic. Frankincense, an ancient incense ingredient, taps into our longing for transcendence, while ambergris embodies our unquenchable curiosity. And exquisite jasmine exemplifies our yearning for beauty, both evanescent and enduring. In addition to providing a riveting initiation into the history, natural history, and philosophy of scent, Fragrant imparts the essentials of scent literacy and includes recipes for easy-to-make fragrances and edible, drinkable, and useful concoctions that reveal the imaginative possibilities of creating with—and reveling in—aroma. Vintage line drawings make for a volume that will be a treasured gift as well as a great read.
'I've long wished perfumery to be taken seriously as an art, and for scent critics to be as fierce as opera critics, and for the wearers of certain "fragrances" to be hissed in public, while others are cheered. This year has brought Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, which I breathed in, rather than read, in one delighted gulp.' Hilary Mantel, Guardian Perfumes: The Guide is the culmination of Turin's lifelong obsession and rare scientific flair and Sanchez's stylish and devoted blogging about every scent that she's ever loved and loathed. Together they make a fine and utterly persuasive argument for the unrecognised craft of perfume-making. Perfume writing has certainly never been this honest, compelling or downright entertaining.
An artisan perfumer reveals a lost art and its mysterious, sensual history. For centuries, people have taken what seems to be an instinctive pleasure in rubbing scents into their skin. Perfume has helped them to pray, to heal, and to make love. And as long as there has been perfume, there have been perfumers, or rather the priests, shamans, and apothecaries who were their predecessors. Yet, in many ways, perfumery is a lost art, its creative and sensual possibilities eclipsed by the synthetic ingredients of which contemporary perfumes are composed, which have none of the subtlety and complexity of essences derived from natural substances, nor their lush histories. Essence and Alchemy resurrects the social and metaphysical legacy that is entwined with the evolution of perfumery, from the dramas of the spice trade to the quests of the alchemists to whom today's perfumers owe a philosophical as well as a practical debt. Mandy Aftel tracks scent through the boudoir and the bath and into the sanctums of worship, offering insights on the relationship of scent to sex, solitude, and the soul. Along the way, she imparts instruction in the art of perfume compositions, complete with recipes, guiding the reader in a process of transformation of materials that continues to follow the alchemical dictum solve et coagula (dissolve and combine) and is itself aesthetically and spiritually transforming.
To women the whole world over, perfume means glamour, and in the world of perfume, Jean-Claude Ellena is a superstar. In this one-of-a-kind book, the master himself takes you through the doors of his laboratory and explains the process of creating precious fragrances, revealing the key methods and recipes involved in this mysterious alchemy. Perfume is a cutthroat, secretive multibillion-dollar industry, and Ellena provides an insider’s tour, guiding us from initial inspiration through the mixing of essences and synthetic elements, to the deluxe packaging and marketing in elegant boutiques worldwide, and even the increasingly complicated safety standards that are set in motion for each bottle of perfume that is manufactured. He explains how the sense of smell works, using a palette of fragrant materials, and how he personally chooses and composes a perfume. He also reveals his unique way of creating a fragrance by playing with our olfactory memories in order to make the perfume seductive and desired by men and women the world over. Perfume illuminates the world of scent and manufactured desire by a perfumer who has had clients the likes of Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, and Hermés.