Interview with Pierre Aulas Artistic Olfactory Director of Thierry Mugler; Creative Director Christophe de Lataillade Butts in {Perfume Q & A}
Around-the-Launch Series
Womanity by Thierry Mugler, with Pierre Aulas and Christophe de Lataillade
Part 1: Angel-and-Alien Rewind
Alien follows a little bit the same model, and like Angel, it has taken
time for it to take off. Here again its success is due in great part to the
juice itself, which has its adepts and loyal fans. There is also a lot of word
of mouth going on. Alien has entered, after 5 years of existence, the French
TOP 12 and the European Top 15. It does very well also in Russia and the Middle
East. Results are a bit more mixed in the US (perhaps because of the name) but
in 2009 there was a very clear progression...
TSS: What is the relationship of Alien to Angel? Was Alien created to
please more Anglo-Saxon cultural tastes, who are reputed to adore, in
principle, white floral bouquets?
Pierre Aulas: At Mugler's we do not
create perfumes for any given market or geographic zone. Moreover, who would have
thought 18 years ago that Angel could have become a very popular perfume in the
US when fashion dictated an exclusive taste for anything and everything aquatic
and transparent! Mr. Mugler is in the habit of saying that we do not follow
fashion trends we create them! Furthermore, if we observe the results of Alien,
it is in the Anglo-Saxon countries that it performs the least well!
TSS: If Womanity is a perfume with a gustatory connotation, it reveals
nevertheless it seems to me a wish to render gustatory notes more sublime. How
do you insure that there is this dose of abstract flight and ideality in a
fragrance?
TSS: Do you have a favorite term to designate those perfumes, which
could be said to be foody? Do you like to use words such as gustatory,
gourmand, gourmet, culinary or others? Do you see the genre as a French exception
originally? Is it a more general movement of sensibility which is bound to
endure?
Pierre Aulas: I rather like the term "gustatory" even if we do not
really eat our perfume! It is a fundamental movement in perfumery as I think
that it "reassures," creates a link with what people are familiar with. They
feel less lost confronted with the mystery and complexity of perfume. And in a
period of crisis, people need reassurance.
TSS: Does it irritate you that Angel has so many copycats or is it for
you like a homage, which renews itself each time?
TSS: If you were to choose between luxury and creativity? Is it easy to
combine both or must one make choices?
Part 2: Womanity
As artistic olfactory director for the house, it is my task, by seeking
inspiration in the fragrance companies, to find the accords, ideas or olfactory
paths which will translate as best can be what Mr. Mugler has in mind, and then
to transform these ideas or accords into a real perfume!
TSS: If you were to roll out a list
of credits including the names of the principal actors having participated in
the creation of Womanity, which names would appear at the top? More generally
and continuing to follow the model of movie-making, how many people do you
estimate have participated in the creation of Womanity?
Christophe de Lataillade: The people who have participated in the
creation of the Womanity fragrance are numerous; it is a real teamwork, company's
work The main actors are Mr. Mugler, Joël Palix, President of Clarins Fragrance
Group, Pierre Aulas, Artistic Olfactory Director, accompanied by the marketing
development teams led by Nelly Chenelat, Mugler Studio, which I head (or
directed by Christophe de Lataillade) for the image, the films, the packaging,
logo, and the development teams who worked on the flacons. There is total of
about 50 people operating internally.
Pierre Aulas: I am in complete agreement with you. There is something
Wagnerian, mythological in the fashion and perfumes by Mugler, with their
feminine archetypes, their goddesses, their demons, and their fantasy universe.
Mr. Mugler is in the habit of saying "My measure is no measure." For him,
nothing is ever impossible and he always pushes us to pick up creative
challenges. This is how the flacon of Angel, which not one glassmaker, a
priori, would agree to make, was made, that the refill fountain that a priori
no distributor wanted is now an institution, that the dosage of raw materials
in the perfumes is unheard of, that technological innovations are very often
presented to us in sneak previews (like the molecular extraction for
Womanity)...
TSS: Womanity is also a perfume which makes you think of a salty macaron
filled with caviar on a bed of pureed red fruits and something like moon dust.
It is gustatory, gourmand, a genre which was sanctified by the success of
Angel. It is also a bit of an extra-terrestrial entity, like Angel. In both we
find this very gustatory imagination and an inspiration derived from the domain
of food. How did the caviar idea dawn upon you and could we know what kind of
caviar was used? In case this note would become a new classic, can you tell us
if there are caviars that are more promising than others for perfumery and are
they necessarily the tastiest?
TSS: One could think by seeing this interest in defining a feminine
humanity that the aromas that were chosen offer a symbolic value. Is caviar
your version of the odore di femmina? Was fig selected for its symbolism, which
is evocative of the garden of Eden? Its milky aspect, is it an allusion to
maternal milk? The marine aspect of the perfume (mer/sea = mother/mere), is it
some kind of psychoanalysis or a genre which attracted you and why? (we know
that Angel was motivated by Thierry Mufger's children memories.) How did the
principal caviar-fig accord impose itself rather than for example,
caviar-passion-fruit?
TSS: Where does this pronounced metallic facet of the perfume, which
seems to echo the hieratic figure and the barbarian frieze, come from?
Pierre Aulas: The nose who created the accord of Womanity is Fabrice
Pellegrin. He got help afterwards from the team of perfumers as a whole at Mane
to finalize the perfume. One must
be a Wagnerian hero to work for a Mugler perfume? Therefore we often need the
help of other gods!
TSS: Did you rely on focus groups? Did you encounter interesting or
amusing reactions towards the perfume?
Pierre Aulas: No testing at Mugler. We only listen to our convictions. On
the other hand, we know since Womanity has been presented to the public that it
is a real Mugler perfume because it provokes love-and-hate reactions!
Pierre Aulas: I will set aside Angel, Alien and Womanity which obviously interest me due to their creativity and powerfulness. On the masculine side, I love Fahrenheit, Aramis, Macassar, and Terre d'Hermès. On the feminine side, Féminité du Bois, Aromatics Elixir, Montana (the first one), Chloé, Balenciaga Paris...and all the others that I forgot!
Picture: Heroes II by Calum Colum
Acknowledgments: Thank you very much to Erin Cohen for offering the opportunity to do this interview and helping organize it.
Previous Posts in Perfume Q & A:
Q & A with Perfumer Mona di Orio around the Launch of Chamarre
Q & A with Alexander Lauber Founder of WienerBlut around the Launch of Klubwasser
| Permalink
Digg This
Stumble
Facebook
Del.icio.us
Comments
Such a great interview! It just makes me want to experience Womanity even more! I can't wait to see the bottle in person. Have you gotten to try it yet Marie-Helene? I truly can't wait for a review. : )
Posted by: Jay | July 12, 2010
Yes, I did test the fragrance but am waiting to go back to it a little bit at leisure. It definitely bears Mugler's signature who is a master of strong, feminine sillages that mean business and are not afraid of making a mark.
Posted by: Marie-Helene Wagner | July 13, 2010