sexta-feira, 21 de outubro de 2016

The Nose Knows by Forbes

Yann Vasnier exudes French cool. A taciturn Breton partial to Givenchy suits and vacations in St. Martin, he frequents such à la mode nightspots as Manhattan’s Boom Boom Room and Parisian cult favorite Derrière.

The man’s got talent, too: His 11th floor office in midtown Manhattan holds hundreds of bottles of perfume components that Vasnier will alchemize into scents for Givaudan, the world’s largest fragrance and flavoring company. It’s a high-profile job, at least among a certain elite: Vasnier’s latest creation, Marc Jacobs Bang, was advertised by Jacobs himself, lounging nude on a Mylar bed strategically holding a giant bottle of the juice on his lap.

Outside the cool-kid set, Vasnier is all but invisible. It’s a familiar feeling for dozens of high-end perfumers working today: Any mall rat can identify the smell of Clinique Happy or Calvin Klein’s CK One; precious few can identify the people who created them.

“I felt like I was locked in a closet,” says Ann Gottlieb of her days working as a perfumer. Gottlieb is now a fragrance consultant–she worked with Vasnier on Bang. As a “nose” she mediates between clients like Jacobs and the perfume designers who create a fragrance for them. (Perfumers must complete a fragrance curriculum, including courses in chemistry and biology, before earning an apprenticeship. Vasnier attended the International Institute of Perfumery, Cosmetics & Alimentary Aromas in Versailles, France. Noses–employed in-house by companies like Hermès or contracted by fragrance houses like Coty–are most often master perfumers who have gained a certain degree of success in the field.)

But the days of sniffing in obscurity are a thing of the past. Like couturiers and chefs before them, perfumers are stepping out from behind the brand names and becoming status symbols– and selling points–themselves. Some luxury labels hope that connecting the artisan to the aroma will sate buyers’ desires for the authentic, the handcrafted, the auteur-guided.

“You can’t just shove the fragrance in someone’s hand and say, ‘It’s new, you’ll love it,’” states Rochelle Bloom, president of the Fragrance Foundation. “You have to tell them what inspired people to develop it–who was moved to put these ingredients together.”

More importantly, as esteemed perfumers like Calice Becker, Olivia Giacobetti and Christine Nagel amass hit after hit, their followers–and their sway within the companies that employ them–increase. It’s helping feed a movement away from mass-produced celebrity lines to small, elite labels backed by prominent perfumers. Think Bertrand Duchaufour, the perfumer-in-residence for Eau d’Italie, or Christopher Sheldrake, who conjured hits for cult brand Serge Lutens. “Celebrity perfumers can make the success of the small brands,” claims Elena Knezhevich, who cofounded the blog Fragrantica.

Perfume blogs like Sniffapalooza and CaFleureBon also create the buzz in the marketplace. By providing a place for people obsessed with fragrance to obsess together, they allow enthusiasts to deliberate over the artistic stylings of Jacques Polge (Bleu de Chanel, Coco Mademoiselle) or Francis Kurkdjian (Jean Paul Gaultier, Narciso Rodriguez, Guerlain) and arrange to meet their idols at smelling events, seminars and awards banquets. In short: Perfumers now have groupies.

“I remember the first perfumer we had at a Sniffapalooza group, Maurice Roucel–he’s like a rock star to us,” says Karen Adams, who coleads Sniffapalooza from her Connecticut home. “We wanted to know what he was thinking when he created a fragrance.”

For Knezhevich it’s all about the passion of her favorite perfumers: “I just like it when people make something with their hearts.”

Both say they’ve seen a significant uptake in their ranks as the popularity of perfumers has grown. Still, there is division among the houses–Firmenich, Givaudan, International Flavors & Fragrances, Symrise and others–on how to handle celebrity perfumers. Some brands are happy to showcase them to fan groups–Chanel and Thierry Mugler, for example, have hosted the Sniffapalooza posse at meet-and-greets. For Coty telling a cohesive story has been key to the company’s most successful launches, notes Lori Singer, vice president of global marketing at Coty Prestige for Vera Wang, Marc Jacobs and Kenneth Cole. And the perfumer plays a significant role in that narrative.

“Yann has a certain taste level and a real understanding into the world of Marc Jacobs,” Singer explains. “He is able to bring that to life.”

Others are not quite as enthusiastic about giving perfumers more cachet. The fear is that if a perfumer becomes too much of a superstar, he’ll start making demands. “The oil houses love them, but they’re nervous about them,” as one insider puts it.

Then there’s Mandy Aftel, who opted out of that game altogether. She started Aftelier Perfumes in 1999 in Berkeley, Calif. as a way to source rare and exotic ingredients–100-year-old sandalwood, $12,000-per-kilo boronia flower, Indian choya nakh from roasted seashells–for all-natural perfumes unconstrained by the requirements of shareholders and marketing reports. She makes fewer than 300 bottles of perfume a year; pricing on the bespoke line starts at $1,100 for 0.5 ounces.

Aftel’s stubborn autonomy (she has refused buyout offers from several companies) has paid off: Her Honey Blossom was the first indie natural perfume to be named a finalist for a prestigious FiFi Award. While her sales are a sliver of the big houses’, they have increased every year and last year jumped 50%.

She’s beating the trend, despite professing that money is not her motivator. Prestige fragrance sales in the U.S. rose just 1% last year, according to research firm NPD Group. Total annual prestige fragrance sales in the U.S. were $2.5 billion, down from $2.9 billion in 2007.

“I’ve been very lucky,” Aftel says. “To have that creative excitement every day when I go to work is the most important thing to me. That matters the most–the life of an artist making perfume.”

It’s a long way from Marc Jacobs atop his golden pallet. But the roses smell just as sweet.