March 30, 2020

INTERVIEW: ANTOINE LIE, PERFUMER (PART 1)

Eris Parfume

French perfumer Antoine Lie has been lauded for his bold, experimental, romantic, and even punk compositions in a career spanning decades. His perfumes have garnered him numerous international awards and a dedicated fan base eager for his next addictive fragrance.

When I was working on Scent and Subversion: Decoding a Century of Provocative Perfume (Lyons Press, 2013), I ended the book with interviews with scent visionaries. Of course, Antoine Lie was among them. For me, his compositions managed to be beautiful but also boundary-pushing and thought-provoking, the opposite of the “easy listening music” perfumes the market had been inundated with. It’s no surprise, then, that his credo is: “I want to explore olfactory worlds that no one has ever thought of.”

I was thrilled Antoine was interested in creating perfumes for ERIS PARFUMS, and from his first animalic floral trio for ERIS, La Belle et la Bête (Ma Bête, Night Flower, Belle de Jour), a postmodern homage to the erotic and bold scents of the past, to his genderfluid compositions celebrating the contemporary gender revolution, Mx. and Mxxx., to a collection we’re working on now, it’s been an honor to have him translate ERIS’s DNA of unconventional beauty and subversive glamour into perfume.

Here’s the first part of a 2-part interview with Antoine — the first I’ve done since Scent and Subversion!

How would you define the style of your perfumes? Is there a common thread, regardless of the category or brand, or whether it’s niche or mainstream?

 

ANTOINE: I like to explore, so I wouldn’t say I have a compositional technique I return to that gives my work a recognizable style. Every project is different and requires different thinking and elaboration. If there’s a common thread out of all the categories and brands, it’s that I want to provide a singular signature or meaning for each of them. It might remind you of something, it might be inspired by something, but I want it to have a signature that fits the project I’m working on. I want to try to reveal something different, either with the formulation, with the ingredients used, or with a new technology. I’m also interested in working in unorthodox spaces and with unexpected brands.

“IF I HAD TO MAKE A COMPARISON TO ANOTHER ART, THE WAY I WORK ON A FRAGRANCE IS LIKE A SCULPTOR. PERFUME IS A LIVING SCULPTURE. ”
— Antoine Lie

 

What does it mean to you to be an independent perfumer? What's great about it? What is challenging?

ANTOINE: Being independent means I can work the way I want with brands I want, with people I want, and with projects that fit my values and vision. It’s equivalent to getting back my creative freedom. That’s key for me because industrial perfumery wasn’t giving me this opportunity anymore. The only risk of being independent is that you are on your own financially, but that’s part of the game.

I really feel relief as well because working for big companies can put you in a fake situation about your role and your real value. You know that you’re in a golden cage working in a system that is self-centered and self-congratulatory, avoiding disturbing and necessary questions that might challenge their real goal: to use more data, to produce more, to sell more, just to get more profit. But I broke free from that specific way of working. Now, I try to work with innovative brands, small brands with values: The product comes first, the image complements it. I’m looking for projects from people who are more in love with perfume than with the business.

Eris Parfume

Antoine Lie in New York City smelling ERIS PARFUMS mods.

“I’M MORE AN ABSTRACT PERFUMER THAN I AM A MINIMALIST OR REALIST PERFUMER.”
— Antoine Lie



You and I became acquainted when I interviewed you about Sécrétions Magnifiques for the “Scent Visionaries” section of my book Scent and Subversion. I was drawn to your bold, avant garde style and what I saw as its connection to the best of vintage perfume. I thought you were one of the perfumers and artists pushing perfume into an interesting future. Do you think it's important for perfume lovers to know vintage perfume or the "classics"? 

 

ANTOINE: I think if you claim you are a perfume lover, you need to know the classics. You need to know the pillars of perfumery, like Guerlain Jicky, Chanel No. 5, for example, and why they’re famous. Then, decade by decade, creation after creation, you will understand more clearly the evolution of this industry. It is like if you want to understand what is happening right now in our world, not by what you are told, but on your own: You need to learn about sociology, economics, philosophy, and history. And to hope for a better future, you need to understand why things are happening now this way. 

The first ERIS trio is inspired by the boldness of vintage perfume, but neither of us was interested in replicating the past. Can you say more about how vintage inspires you not only for ERIS, but in general?

 

ANTOINE: I grew up with what is today considered vintage perfume. My mother didn’t wear Shalimar, but she wore fragrances launched at the time: Chanel No. 19, YSL Opium, Turbulence by Révillon, Magie Noire by Lancome. All so unique and different from one another. At the time, perfumery was overall more niche than some niche brands are claiming they are now! Chanel 19, for example, is very memorable because it is remarkably different. Even if it was inspired by the Vent Vert by Balmain and its overdose of galbanum, it was a reinterpretation with its own identity, with the Chanel DNA, with this “chic and choc” attitude.

The fragrance launches were special, too. A brand might launch a new perfume every five to eight years. There were no flankers, no fresher or lighter versions. Few fragrances were boring, each had a unique side, each attempted to be a new, emotional creation. The fragrances weren’t just developed as “sniff and buy.” That’s why vintage is so important to me. It’s the opposite of what’s happening now. The most important thing for some big brands is to take up a lot of shelf-space. But loving vintage perfume doesn’t mean I want to reproduce what has been done before. It’s the way vintage perfumes were made, the philosophy behind them, that I want to replicate now: that perfume should be developed through the perfumer’s aesthetic savoir faire and not dictated by data like consumer testing or artificial intelligence.

Eris Parfume

Illustration for ERIS PARFUMS by Bjorn Brochmann




“I DON’T LIKE THE ‘I WANT THE FRAGRANCE TO MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE TRAVELING TO A PLACE’ KIND OF PERFUME-MAKING. I TRY TO TRANSPORT PEOPLE TO SOMETHING MORE PHYSICALLY EMOTIONAL THAN TO A TYPICAL PLACE. IT SHOULD TRANSPORT YOU TO A DIFFERENT STATE OF MIND OR PLACES YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO.”
— Antoine Lie

What are your favorite vintage perfumes?

 

ANTOINE: It’s not my favorite, but there’s one that each time I smell it, I recognize it, even from meters away and say “wow”: Guerlain L’Heure Bleue. It uses high quality ingredients, the concentration is low, and the sillage is so great. But in perfumery, less is often best...

Shalimar, Aromatics Elixir, Hypnotic Poison, Eau Sauvage, Pour un Homme, Angel: Their signatures are unique, and I recognize them instantly. Now there’s almost an olfactive cacophony of twisted “me too’s.” Out of 800 launches yearly, maybe more, how many stand out or are really noticeable by their specific olfactive signature? Whatever the answer is, it is a poor ratio. The industry has fallen victim to conformity, uniformity, and the desire to scale big for the sake of growth.

If someone’s wearing Opium, even Giorgio or Acqua di Gio, you may like it or not, but you recognize it. Even reformulated Shalimar, you can’t miss it. Now, I might be on the metro and smell something with a creamy/white flower/ sandalwood accord that is technically powerful, with a huge sillage, but the signature is not clear because it is so faceted with elements added to please the inevitable standardized consumer test. Just because a fragrance shouts doesn’t mean it’s leaving a clear message. 

“LOVING VINTAGE PERFUME DOESN’T MEAN I WANT TO REPRODUCE WHAT HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE. IT’S THE WAY THAT VINTAGE PERFUMES WERE MADE, THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND THEM, THAT I WANT TO REPLICATE NOW: THAT PERFUME SHOULD BE DEVELOPED THROUGH THE PERFUMER’S AESTHETIC SAVOIR FAIRE AND NOT DICTATED BY DATA LIKE CONSUMER TESTING OR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. ”
— Antoine Lie
Eris Parfume

Explain your process of composition for non-perfumers. How do you "think" in perfume? Do you use visuals, language, memory of scents you like…?

 

ANTOINE: It’s hard to describe things that are invisible. It’s difficult to translate. If I had to make a comparison to another art, to simplify it, the way I work on a fragrance is like a sculptor. Perfume is a living sculpture.

It’s a matter of space. It’s a diffusion in space. And I like my fragrances to project.  I decide the shape and structure of the olfactive sculpture: Should it be large? Piercing? High? When I formulate and then smell it, I try to imagine the shape it will take up space in a room. Large or dense or soft? Moving slowly or moving with a lot of energy?

As I’m deciding this, I’m also putting colors and texture on the sculpture. That’s how I work with ingredients. My job is to build an olfactive sculpture. Some people compare perfume-making to painting. For me, it’s 3-dimensional, not 2-dimensional. Or they compare it to writing, but for me that’s too poetic and nostalgic. The way I compose is much more visual, textural, tactile, sensual.

I also don’t like the, “I want the fragrance to make you feel like you’re traveling to this place” kind of perfume-making. I try to transport people to something more physically emotional than to a typical place. It should transport you to different state of mind or places you’ve never been to… 

I’m more an abstract perfumer (using texture, colors and the rawness of elements) than I am a minimalist or realist perfumer. If I had to think about myself as a painter, I’m not into watercolors. I’d be inspired by painters like Gaugin, for example, who had a spiritual approach to art through his use of raw color on large canvasses. In music, I feel connected to the psychedelic music of the 70s. I also like 80s New Wave music, because it created an inspirational, abstract, experimental and new universe during my childhood, and it definitely played a role in how I think of my creations.  

The way you describe your perfume methods makes me think of Brian Eno’s ambient music.

 

ANTOINE: Ambient. There’s another image or metaphor for perfume: Music that fills up a room with a different rhythm adding another dimension to your feelings. And Eno’s experimental music is for sure an inspirational tool that I listen to when I need it ... 

PART II will be published on Wednesday, April 1.

Written by Barbara Herman