What is your motto?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. – Leonardo da Vinci
What is your first memory of perfume?
Kiehl’s Musk. When I was six, my father brought back a small bottle of it from New York. I spent my childhood stealing droplets of the perfumed oil, which I found bewitching!
What are, according to you, the basics of creating a standout fragrance?
A standout fragrance doesn’t only depend on technique and aesthetics. It is first and foremost a verypotentidea thatcaters for an unconscious collective desire.
What are the major challenges that a perfumer faces?
To stay true to oneself and to avoid copying from others too much, in case one forgets what makes one’s own world so special and kills one’s instinct and imagination.
Which ingredients do you enjoy working withthemost, and why?
I like wood, all kinds of woods. Whether dry, black, green, smooth, or burnt, there is somethingprimordial about the scent of wood. I cannotformulate a fragrance without having a specific wood in mind. Wood makes everything morerefined. It provides structureand mystery, too.
What is it that makes the IUNX brand so unique on the market today?
IUNX is a very free brand with no marketing obligations. It is above all aperfumerand creator’s brand. We simplydidwhat we feltlike doing.
Which of your scented creations do you consider the best?
Theones to come! I don’t really look back on what I’ve created because the only way of being truly creative is tokeep an eye on the future.However, it is rewarding to know that some of my fragrances have withstood the test of time – perhaps because they werefree of trends.
What is it that makesfragranceslikeSplash Forte, Eau Sento and Eau Blanche so unique and recognisable on the street?
I’m not sure… Perhaps their simplicity.My main goal is to find a simple form – not a simplistic form, but a complex form that gives the illusion of simplicity.
I’m attracted to primordial scents – scents from ancient memories,scents thatcaptivate us: trees, water, fire…
If you had to pick one IUNX perfume for yourself, which would it be?
I would choose Eau Blanche because it’s an everyday fragrance, which fits any season and which I like to compare to a basic but essential piece of clothing. Ithas the simplicity of a white cotton shirt.No doubt about it: it can be worn with anything.
Your creations are oftenlight and airy (for example En Passant and SplashForte). Is this your trademark?
It isn’t, because it’s not the case for all the perfumes I create. What dictates the volume and power of the fragrance is its theme. There is a tendency to want toup the volume, but whatmakes music isn’t the noise – it’sthe melody.Nowadaysthe generaltendency is to favour loudness, no matter the lyrics: perfumers use the same set of high-diffusion molecules and everything ends up smelling the same.While some perfumes must be on the strong side to fully express their potential, others act like aveil, a second skin. White lilac, which is the centraltheme of the perfume En Passant, would becomecloyingat a higher concentration and would loseall of itsnaturalness and poetry. Most of IUNX’s eaux are designed and developed as contemporary “colognes” – low-concentration eaux made to be spritzed on liberally. L’Ether is a little different, in that its high concentration is made to match theheavy,warmandaerialqualities of incense.
Your fragrances are often inspired by natural elements (fig trees, wet wood, white linen on a clothesline)…Which landscapes are most evocative to you in your work for IUNX?
It’s not so much natural landscapes as specific moments and sensations,muchlike freeze-frames. I like the idea of trying to capture a fleetingimpression before itslips away. Reality merges with memory. I don’t try to replicate specific scents, but rather our perception of them.What interests me is the sensation a scent brings. Eau Sento doesn’t replicate the smell ofa Japanese bath per se, but expresses the scent of skinswathed in a soothing woody vapour. What I tried to achieve with the fig tree wasn’t torecreate its scent in the most minute of details: a perfume isn’t like lemon juice! Instead, I was looking for the feeling of a very hot summer, of a fig leaf as one crumples it between one’s hands.
You like perfumes that tell stories. What is your favourite olfactory story at IUNX?
I’m unable to create a perfume that doesn’t have a very personal and emotional dimension to it. I simply draw inspiration from whatmoves me. I don’t have a favourite story because all of IUNX’s themes draw from personal stories. Our latest eau, TALC,takesme back to Japan. It is inspired by a dance in which bodies covered in white powderbrush against one another with extreme slowness.The aim was to convey thisenvelopingsense oflightness, softness, and strange quietness.
