Interview with Perfumer Arturetto Landi

by: Serguey Borisov

I was introduced to perfumer Arturetto Landi at the opening cocktail of Pitti Fragranze 2014. The crowd of perfume-devoted people around us was too loud and cheerful: people enjoyed Prosecco and Italian specialty snacks after the long exhibition day. Definitely, it was not the best place and time to try some new perfumes, but it was good enough to make new contacts. So we swapped our business cards, and after a super-fast and crumpled sniffing session with a very tired nose I got a booklet of new perfumes “to be launched soon.” I remember my thought about the brand name Art Landi Profumi ("oh, artistic perfumery!") as I never linked it with the perfumer's name.

So I was a bit surprised when I got email from Arturetto Landi with a short message: “I have launched in Dubai my perfume line Profumi d'Art we spoke about in Florence last September. Best, Art Landi”—but now I was ready for interview.

Serguey Borisov:
Dear Mr. Landi, I'm happy to have the chance to make an interview. Thank you very much for your time. There are some fragrances listed as your creations in the Fragrance Encyclopedia of Fragrantica.com—you made some perfumes forDiesel, MCM, Torre of Tuscany, biehl parfumkunstwerke and legendary perfumes for The People of the Labyrinths. What are the perfumes you are most proud of and what makes them so special for you?

Arturetto Landi:
Of course, I am very proud of my seven new PROFUMI D'ART creations. It took me many years to create them, they represent my perfumery career (Haarmann & Reimer, Dragoco, Symrise, Mane et Fils) and many specials moments in my life.
 Of course, I have other favorite fragrances which I have created for different clients but I prefer not to mention any of them since it is a sensitive subject and not every client wishes to reveal who is the perfumer behind their perfumes. Those you mentioned in the Fragrantica database are enough for me.

Serguey Borisov:
What do you think about authorship and copyright in perfumery?

Arturetto Landi:
For me these are two different things.

Authorship, from a perfumer's point of view, if he works for a fragrance company, all the fragrances he creates belong to the company he works for. He is the creator of the scent but the formula and the know-how belong to the company he works at. 


Copyright: If you mean the right of copying or imitating a fragrance, I personally think that it is very difficult to prove it from the scent point of view and to make it 100% precise; even if you take the same formula it will smell different, if ingredients of the mix are from different suppliers, since each supplier has a different palette of raw materials. 


If you mean, is it ethical or not to copy someone's scent, I personally would feel very proud if someone would like to copy my fragrances, as it would mean that they are good. No one will imitate a scent which is not good and not selling good! Imitation for me is a confirmation that the scent is good and successful. What I do not approve is copying names, forms, bottles and packaging.

Serguey Borisov:

Our best congratulations upon the launch of your own brand! What made you want to create your own perfume line, Art Landi Profumi? Is it oriented to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean tastes or did you consider a wider audience?

Arturetto Landi:
I think that it is the dream of every perfumer: one day to come out in the market with his or her own fragrances. I have had this dream for a very long time. On the other hand I did not want to come out just with some scents to prove that I can make good fragrances or that my fragrances are better than others.

I wanted to do it in a way that I would introduce a new perfume system, new packaging, a new way of using scents. From the utility point of view I was inspired by the coffee industry: you buy a coffee machine and then you choose different coffee capsules, according to your mood or personal taste. Basically my concept with a fragrance dispenser and replaceable pouches applies the same concept and it is a novelty for the perfume industry.

As for the fragrances I consider my perfume line for a worldwide audience with the exception of ART04, which is maybe more Middle Eastern-oriented, conceptually.

It is an oud note, but a real oud and it is to be used as a booster and fixator to be sprayed on the skin or clothes before any other scents, as the Arabs do, in order to boost and fix any fragrances coming on top of it.

Serguey Borisov:
What was more important for Art Landi Profumi: design or smell? The unique Vertu-like dispenser with interchangeable plastic pouches (can they be recycled?) or the formulas?

Arturetto Landi:
Both, although I am very proud of the design since is a totally new concept, and I am the inventor and designer of this packaging system. I have the utility patent for that unique packaging. The perfume pouches are made of a polymer mixture, which is very light, easily portable, cost effective in production, does not require a lot of energy to produce and can be easily recycled. In comparison, glass flacons are much more expensive and require a lot of energy to produce. As for fragrances, they are very subjective and cannot please everyone.

Serguey Borisov:
Did you use some unique aroma materials in Art Landi Profumi creations? Maybe some captives made by Mane?

Arturetto Landi:
All seven fragrances meet very high standards and contain unique and very expensive raw natural materials. Their prices are much higher than the average fragrances available in the market. Of course, since I have worked for Victor Mane et Fils for a long time, I used many special ingredients and Jungle essences™ from the Mane palette.

Serguey Borisov:
You have been working as perfumer since 1979. (Wow! 35 years!) What can you tell us about the change of consumer tastes? Do we consumers change our perfume tastes eventually or does the perfume industry change them, according to fashion and the newest technologies and molecules? Like, which came first: oud or our love for oriental woods?

Arturetto Landi:
When I started to work in perfumery, fragrance houses would launch only a fragrance a year or may be even every two-three years. Now they launch several fragrances a year. I believe that in the old days we had more unique, quality-wise and creation-wise fragrance launches than we have today. Today many fragrances are very similar and have become very commercial.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that modern consumers have become very moody. They are always looking for something new and do not know exactly what they are looking for.
We are a fast-food-consuming society.

Serguey Borisov:
What will be the next hot topic after the oud craze, in your opinion?

Arturetto Landi: I discovered Agarwood 25 years ago during my first visit to the Middle East, and I was very much fascinated by this material from the beginning. There is nothing that smells like oud. It has a very complex smell, a perfume by itself. It is very special and goes well with almost anything, if proportioned properly. It is extremely long-lasting and precious.

Of course, there are many qualities of oud depending on the location where the resin is harvested and the method of extraction. I do not like the oils which are very animalic and cheesy, I prefer warm woody and leathery qualities, as for instance the oud oil coming from Assam (India) or the oil from Trat, a region on the borders of Cambodia and Thailand.

In 1991 I took an oud sample back home and showed it to my perfumer colleagues. Everyone made a negative comment about it. Twenty years later the whole industry is launching oud types of scents.

That is an example of how difficult it is to predict scent direction.

Musk could be the next new big thing, not the natural ingredient but as a mixture of chemical molecules. Musk has a clean, warm and sensual smell, and people like it and accept it in compositions very well.

Serguey Borisov:
You have worked in three big European perfume corporations and possibly were a tutor for young talents yourself. What is the greatest lesson in the perfumer occupation that you received or gave?

Arturetto Landi:
Modesty, patience, imagination, passion. And the ability to recognize good things.


Serguey Borisov:

Everybody has their dreams: to change the world, to become a well-known professional, to make a happy family, etc. What are your dreams?

Arturetto Landi:
No doubt, my family is very important to me. Professionally speaking, perfumery is my life and my passion. Passion is the force that keeps me going no matter how difficult and challenging the tasks and the obstacles are. I wish to be active in this business for many more years, make many more nice fragrances, to make more people happy by their use.

Serguey Borisov:
You work at Mane et Fils now. I found a quote on the company's website: “Passion is the secret ingredient.” What does passion smell like?

Arturetto Landi:
Passion is for sure a must in perfumery. No passion, no drive.

Of all the raw materials I use, patchouli oil is for sure the material which mostly tickles my passion and feelings. I was born in 1949 and in the 60s (my youth generation) patchouli oil was adopted as the scent that defined the ''free love'' culture and was chosen as a universal scent for men and women. The scent of patchouli was an olfactive tattoo, an artifact of 1960s counterculture. Patchouli oil has a very complex smell and is almost a fragrance by itself. It has fruity, floral, spicy, coniferous, balsamic and woody notes. It is amazing, awesome, there is nothing like it.

Patchouli oil supports other fragrance notes in a perfume and harmoniously anchors them. As a fragrance family I love Chypres and patchouli is one of the major ingredients in all the Chypre fragrances, it is the driving force of most of the Chypre notes. Patchouli oil is one of the few materials in perfumery that cannot be fully synthesized. Perfumery and perfumers cannot do and cannot live without patchouli.

I would compare perfumery with cooking; cooking without passion just does not work. And any perfume without passion smells poor. Me, I would love to smell some perfumes made with passion. So I am waiting for my seven samples of Art Landi Profumi— to try figure it out by my own nose.