Pitti Fragranze-2015: Pierre Guillaume

by: Serguey Borisov

Pierre Guillaume and his small PG team presented the second part of PG, La Collection Croisière at the perfume event Pitti Fragranze 15. The first four fragrances were presented in March; Mojito Chypré was launched in June, the launch of Métal Hurlant was now, at Pitti, and they 're planning the launch of Fleur de Foudreand Rivages Noirs at the end of 2015, around November. But there was more news from Pierre Guillaume…

Sergey Borisov: So you changed a bit the schedule of the PG launches?

Pierre Guillaume: Yes, initially we planned to introduce Fleur de Foudre in November 2015 and Rivages Noirs in February 2016. But our German retailers asked us to present both Cruise fragrances before Christmas, to increase the huge success that the collection has worldwide. So we complied with the request. Also, we're presenting here the 13th fragrance in the Huitième Art Parfums collection, Shermine. It's a really big perfume, with a name that's compiled of the last letter of Iris (S) plus Hermine, to transfer its idea of “Iris like a fur”. Our goal was to make a powdery scent that men can wear also. I wanted the fragrance to smell like you feel fur touching your skin, very tender, sweet, dry and velvety. 

Sergey Borisov: As far as I can remember, furs don't smell very sweet – they smell animalic…

Pierre Guillaume: That`s why I detached the animalic smell from the feeling of furs. The sensation of fur caressing the skin – that`s Shermine. The animalic scents will come later, in the Contemplation’15 collection, with Leathermore and Lumière Fauve, fragrances that are devoted to animalic smells. 

Sergey Borisov: It seems to me that detaching the animalic smell might be a result of the controversial relation our civilization has with furs. PETA activists, animal rights… and still fur is a luxurious product; the touch of fur against skin has become the rarest luxury nowadays.

Pierre Guillaume: Actually, Sergey, look here at the visual of the fragrance. See the fur photo? PETA activists have already sent us an email – they have no idea about me and my personal beliefs about these things, and they know nothing about theShermine perfume, but they took the right to judge me and my work, to offend and blame me. Of course, I wrote them back that I`d never buy a real fur coat for thousands of euros to make just one picture for one visual! They just don`t know me and don`t respect my work. I believe that many people like the sensation of furs – but nobody likes the idea of dead animals. It`s just about the feeling of fur and I wanted to create the olfactive analog to its texture. Because I really like this delicate caress of fur. 

Sergey Borisov: It could be an ostrich feather instead of fur also.

Pierre Guillaume: Of course! Absolutely! I really want to forget about the smell of furs  and focus on the feeling. 

Sergey Borisov: So it needs a few special synaesthetic abilities… 

Pierre Guillaume: You know, Sergey, I am totally synaesthetic. I am working like a painter, not a musician, in my fragrances. Each perfume has a color for me – and Shermine is white for me, white and dark pink by color. A kind of burgundy wine color, deep purple and violet – that part of the palette. And whiteness. 

Sergey Borisov: It should evoke the medieval ermine mantles of monarchs.

Pierre Guillaume: Yes, it`s very rich but also very pure. But again, it`s about the skin feeling, not the smell of furs itself. Actually, that`s why I choose the animalic theme for The Contemplation collection this year.

Sergey Borisov: And now, let`s focus on the animalic part of your creations!

Pierre Guillaume: OK, did you ever smell African stone resinoid or absolute?

Sergey Borisov: Never in raw form.

Pierre Guillaume opened a plastic ziplock, then an aluminum cylinder to reveal a thick brown goo. He reached out to have me smell it – it smells like something real from Mother Nature. Besides a concentrated fecal and urine scent, there are also some warm and mineral shades (but still it`s too much to be attractive or even wearable in civilized society). Real rodent guano, fossilized in the earth for thousands of years under the sun and winds, taken from African lands attached to some rocks, to be used as an animalic ingredient in perfumery. Hyraceum (or African stone, or golden stone) resinoid from Somalia. It smells both terrible and awesome. 

Pierre Guillaume: It`s pure dirty shit. It`s organic and sometimes mineralic. It reminds  one of castoreum and civet by smell, but it has nothing to do with animal abuse or cruelty. The idea was to tame and masterize this animalic ugly dirtiness, to make it perfectly intelligent and wearable. You know what? One time, I read some comments  on The Cruise Collection, made by an Italian blogger who had written very insulting things about me and my perfumes. That was a snobbish move, because La Collection Croisiere has a huge success worldwide. I read it on my phone and said: “Ok guys, continue to shit on me, and I make it gold!” [laughs]

Procavia Capensis

Sergey Borisov: So let`s try the gold?

Pierre Guillaume: OK, starting with Lumière Fauve. It was made as a contemporary version and dedication to L`Ombre Fauve launched in 2007, a scent with spices, woods and ylang-ylang. Here, you also find the Moroccan black honey resinoid that comes from cypresses growing in the Moroccan mountains. Just smell it (he sprays it on the blotter). You`ll also find some blond tobacco in it, with a hint of Prunol (Feminité du Bois, Femme de Rochas, etc.), to give it some lift and to surround and mask the wild African stone a little bit. And it`s interesting, if you put it in alcohol, you could smell a bit of a cocoa note in it, just a little of a castoreum-chocolate smell. And I find honey to be a good bridge between animalic and chocolate aspects.

Actually, I did not recall L’Ombre Fauve, the animalic woody amber perfume, at the Pitti. So at home, I tried to find a sample of it in my closet, just to compare it with the new Lumière Fauve. The comparison didn't fly for me - L’Ombre Fauve was a hairy, animalic amber, like Animalis Amber, quite monotonous and even a rather cold perfume with cedar wood that feels like a slow but powerful python. The new Lumière Fauve belongs to the spicy oriental family with a great animalic input, and has more explicit animalic, hot and spicy parts, based on hyraceum, ylang ylang and honey. In the base, Lumière Fauve goes from animalic to powdery gourmand. So the new version is more like a lively predator in a beehive. It`s interesting to look at the evolution.

Pierre Guillaume: Leathermore was a perfume I created for myself and I was aiming to create some OTHER kind of leather. More than a leather. You know, in my collection there`s a strange leather called Cuir Venenum, there`s a classical-academical leather Cuir d`Iris, and there's also a gourmand leather L`Oiseau de Nuit. And now I wanted to make a “fresh leather”, a “vegetal green leafy leather”. Historically they made vegetal leather by immersing hides into vegetal extracts of rhubarb, oak, acacia, mimosa or mosses… I like the idea of putting a piece of leather into a green juice of leafs. Green, sharp, fresh, milky leather. 

Sergey Borisov: It starts fresh, almost like a cologne!

Pierre Guillaume: No-no-no! You find here a fresh green accord: mint, cis-3-hexenal, spicy cardamom, a violet note. So you have the freshness of a modern cologne but without the citrus notes; no bergamot, no fleur d`orange, no-no-no! It starts very leafy and transparent, and – be patient, it takes some time. The leather is coming. 

If the reaction of people towards Leathermore is good, you know, Sergey, I will do something in an animalic direction. It happened this way with Mojito Chypré, with Arabian Horse, etc. I never do something without a reason. There`s a logical reason, but you`ll discover that next year. There`s Iris, and Ginger, and Olibanum resinoid (you know, I work more with resinoid than with oil), and some woody notes in it, let me think… Elemi, Cypriol Heart from Robertet, that I used in Isparta and Monsieur…  

Sergey Borisov: On a blotter Leathermore has a long phase that evokes a fresh green summer morning, which I love most. On my skin, especially after an ambery shower gel-shampoo, it presents a grey amber leather mineral sillage starting from the first minutes. I`d love for it to  have a more pronounced start, even if afterwards you would have to decide it fits better in La Collection Croisiere, in those blue bottles instead of the brown one.

Pierre Guillaume: Yes, the leather and mineral side is obvious, but the smell is still leafy fresh. I will have about a year to think about it – to have people tell me if it`s a good direction. That`s why it`s important to me to see the reaction at exhibitions, since we don't do marketing research, we are a small company. But the last time, when we presented Mojito Chypré, we took note of people's reactions and made some minor changes to it. 

Sergey Borisov: Let`s try and discuss the new Métal Hurlant?

Pierre Guillaume: OK, the idea was to create a leather perfume, but a kind of abstract, conceptual one that's still very wearable. The starting point was patchouli, maybe like Habit Rouge, but with a "Comme des Garcons" approach. So I started with true Patchouli oil (a very rude and full one) and we started to work on a dis-accord, to create a dis-harmony. We ended up with two dis-accords in it. One is a Patchouli–Jasmine dis-accord, and the other is Clary Sage. They do not work together and create an effect I call Chimaera. I mean, all these metallic and fresh paint effects are not real, the whole synthetic cacophony is made by that disharmony effect.

We did not use Labdanum or Birch Tar for the leather, it is an accord of Suederal and Corinal. We used Jasmine absolute to push up the animalic effect in the top notes, and you'll find some ethylene brassilate Musk and some Kaolactone (it`s a molecule that smells like dirty hair, like sebum) to make the biker-rocker image more naturalistic. 

Sergey Borisov: To me the perfume feels very ambery…

Pierre Guillaume: It`s Amberketal, a very strong smell of dry amber. We don`t want to make it very refined. So it`s like an ambery feeling, not the true amber accord. It lacks the sweet balsamic parts of amber. Together with Musk T and Kaolactone, it creates the unwashed biker image. You see, we work our way around the animalic part of perfumery – with beast furs that caress and wild humans. Our inspirations are everywhere. By the way, Métal Hurlant was basically made to meet the request of our Russian distributor. 

Sergey Borisov: I`d love to see Pierre Guillaume starting the new trend – to launch perfumes in collection of various perfumes in 15 ml spray vials. Like you did La Collection Croisière – it`s like a PG Spring-Summer perfume collection in one box. 

Pierre Guillaume: The next four perfumes of La Collection Croisière is coming next month, in a trial box. I understand that not many people want to go for every 100 ml flacon. So, PG is one of the brands that offers 100 ml, 50 ml and 30 ml. And now we have trial boxes with 4 perfumes too – that`s a perfume wardrobe all on its own! We are also working on the idea of Bar A Parfums Parfumerie Générale  – then people would be able to get any four 15 ml perfumes in a boutique.

But we need to solve some problems first, to develop logistics and to give a proper education to the sales assistants. 

Shermine Huitième Art Collection

Notes: Lemon, Cardamom, Pink Pepper, Lavender, Iris Fur accord, Guaiac Wood, Vanilla, Musk, Vetiver, Patchouli.

Lumière Fauve

Notes: Cinnamon, Clove, Angelica, Hyraceum resinoid, Ylang-ylang, Black Moroccan honey, Tobacco, Cocoa, Leather, Musks.

Leathermore

Notes:  Cardamom, Cumin, Pink pepper, Ginger, Green sap accord, Jasmine, Leather, Olibanum, Guaiac wood, Musks.

Métal Hurlant

Notes: Jasmine, Patchouli, Clary Sage, Musks, Amber

Photos from the event: Juliette ptoyan