fruits.
Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, Wednesday 21 April 2010
The classics
We are all here to define our vision and the strategy we want to put in place for the years ahead. One of the issues we discuss is our old perfumes. Hermès is one of the rare perfumers to have continued selling its entire range of perfumes since they were created. The first,
Eau d’Hermès
, was composed by Edmond Roudnitska in 1951. I feel a particular affection for this perfume. It represents the early beginnings of a man who was to put his stamp as a perfumer on the third quarter of the twentieth century. Its formula is complex, unstructured, but contains a jumble of all the accords and ideas to follow. Five years later he composed
Diorissimo
for Dior, an archetype of refinement and a paragon of the smell of lily of the valley. Lily of the valley may be Christian Dior’s favorite flower, but I can only explain Edmond Roudnitska’s dramatic change in the way he composed perfume by the fact that he now worked for himself. He had left the De Laire firm, which specialized in making synthesized products, to set up on his own with his wife, and to found the company Art et Parfum.
The ‘classics’ – a lovely way of describing our oldest perfumes – represent only a small percentage of our sales, with the exception of
Calèche
(the Hermès logo is in fact a
calèche –
a horse and carriage). The economy and the retail strategy favor the young, and they have no use for the older perfumes. I am shocked by this because they are all beautiful perfumes. All the same, I donot feel that the industry has a duty of memory which would mean that, a century from now,
Terre d’Hermès
should necessarily still be for sale – the International Museum of Perfumery in Grasse has that task – but it has a duty of respect. I like the thought that a man or a woman can choose a perfume at twenty and is still able to buy it when he or she is sixty, having indulged in a few infidelities.
Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, Thursday 22 April 2010
Craft
In the space of five years every single person involved in developing the perfume collections has been replaced. These people, with whom I shared a vision, and who were in charge of our work strategy, have all left their jobs. I find this disconcerting. Within a company employees don’t stay long in a particular job. It is true that a position can, by its nature, foster a need for change because, after a while and despite the variety of the work, tasks become repetitive, producing a feeling of boredom and a loss of interest.
Apart from the economic problems relating to salaries, changes produced by the constant remixing of personalities are probably a simple way of taking a fresh look at things. Without wishing to negate this, I do think that such a quasi-quantitative vision should be replaced by a more qualitative approach based on improving the value of the job; based, in other words, on apprenticeship and skill development.
As a perfumer, I do not have an actual job, but I practice a craft, one that involves knowledge, know-how and skill. And yet that in itself is not enough: in order to continue to exist and to practice my craft, I have to keep re-inventing it and not just repeat any old recipes.
Unlike a ‘proper’ job, which is quantifiable, a craft is always extending its field of operations, pushing the boundaries of the craftsman’s abilities ever further. Inventing means renewing, growing.
Cabris, Tuesday 27 April 2010
Iris Ukiyoé
The name of the new Hermessence has been chosen. Having hesitated for a long time between
Iris Ukiyo
and
Iris Ukiyoé
, I chose the latter. The word
‘ukiyo’
means ‘the floating world’, an aspect of Buddhist philosophy that invites us to meditate on the poignant beauty of fragile things. It teaches us that the world is constantly changing, ephemeral, evanescent, and resists any attempt to model it. This word
‘ukiyo’
provides an echo of my vision of the perfume; the
Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, Wednesday 21 April 2010
The classics
We are all here to define our vision and the strategy we want to put in place for the years ahead. One of the issues we discuss is our old perfumes. Hermès is one of the rare perfumers to have continued selling its entire range of perfumes since they were created. The first,
Eau d’Hermès
, was composed by Edmond Roudnitska in 1951. I feel a particular affection for this perfume. It represents the early beginnings of a man who was to put his stamp as a perfumer on the third quarter of the twentieth century. Its formula is complex, unstructured, but contains a jumble of all the accords and ideas to follow. Five years later he composed
Diorissimo
for Dior, an archetype of refinement and a paragon of the smell of lily of the valley. Lily of the valley may be Christian Dior’s favorite flower, but I can only explain Edmond Roudnitska’s dramatic change in the way he composed perfume by the fact that he now worked for himself. He had left the De Laire firm, which specialized in making synthesized products, to set up on his own with his wife, and to found the company Art et Parfum.
The ‘classics’ – a lovely way of describing our oldest perfumes – represent only a small percentage of our sales, with the exception of
Calèche
(the Hermès logo is in fact a
calèche –
a horse and carriage). The economy and the retail strategy favor the young, and they have no use for the older perfumes. I am shocked by this because they are all beautiful perfumes. All the same, I donot feel that the industry has a duty of memory which would mean that, a century from now,
Terre d’Hermès
should necessarily still be for sale – the International Museum of Perfumery in Grasse has that task – but it has a duty of respect. I like the thought that a man or a woman can choose a perfume at twenty and is still able to buy it when he or she is sixty, having indulged in a few infidelities.
Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, Thursday 22 April 2010
Craft
In the space of five years every single person involved in developing the perfume collections has been replaced. These people, with whom I shared a vision, and who were in charge of our work strategy, have all left their jobs. I find this disconcerting. Within a company employees don’t stay long in a particular job. It is true that a position can, by its nature, foster a need for change because, after a while and despite the variety of the work, tasks become repetitive, producing a feeling of boredom and a loss of interest.
Apart from the economic problems relating to salaries, changes produced by the constant remixing of personalities are probably a simple way of taking a fresh look at things. Without wishing to negate this, I do think that such a quasi-quantitative vision should be replaced by a more qualitative approach based on improving the value of the job; based, in other words, on apprenticeship and skill development.
As a perfumer, I do not have an actual job, but I practice a craft, one that involves knowledge, know-how and skill. And yet that in itself is not enough: in order to continue to exist and to practice my craft, I have to keep re-inventing it and not just repeat any old recipes.
Unlike a ‘proper’ job, which is quantifiable, a craft is always extending its field of operations, pushing the boundaries of the craftsman’s abilities ever further. Inventing means renewing, growing.
Cabris, Tuesday 27 April 2010
Iris Ukiyoé
The name of the new Hermessence has been chosen. Having hesitated for a long time between
Iris Ukiyo
and
Iris Ukiyoé
, I chose the latter. The word
‘ukiyo’
means ‘the floating world’, an aspect of Buddhist philosophy that invites us to meditate on the poignant beauty of fragile things. It teaches us that the world is constantly changing, ephemeral, evanescent, and resists any attempt to model it. This word
‘ukiyo’
provides an echo of my vision of the perfume; the
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