Jean-Claude Ellena has just presented his Journal d’un parfumeur (whose English translation will come out next year) to the members of the Société Française des Parfumeurs (22/09/11), describing the genesis of the book and reading out some excerpts.
His quip about doing a two-line formula is just that, a quip, yet Ellena seems aware that the terseness of his style and the deliberate limitation of his palette are at risk of hemming him in. At least, he writes as much in his book, and this is actually one of the excerpts he’s picked. And somehow, it is this sense of self-awareness and self-restriction that come through during the talk.
Ellena knows he is addressing an audience entirely composed of perfume industry professionals. He seems aware of the fine line between acknowledging the level of freedom he is granted and the risk of seeming to boast about it.
The fact is that many of his colleagues are frustrated and disheartened. As an evaluator in a major oil house confided to me, “they don’t choose who they work with. They work with people they don’t understand, and who don’t understand them.” A development they’ve worked on for months can be altered until every original molecule is blasted out of its body; it can be flat-out rejected by a client up to the very last minute, a brutal, disrespectful practice, but one that has been going on for decades.
Therefore, Ellena’s position, as he describes it, is fairly unique. He is left entirely free to develop his fragrances. At most, he is given a name (“Terre”, “Voyage”) or Hermès’ yearly theme (India, artisans…). He relies exclusively on his own judgment: he “hears” the comments made by the evaluators or the marketing team, he explains, but doesn’t necessarily follow up on them. When asked by a young perfumer in the audience whether he’s got someone who acts as his “mirror”, he shakes his head. Ultimately, he claims, he engages in a very narcissistic activity: before the perfume comes out, he himself is the mirror, “and if I look at myself in the mirror and like what I see, I feel better”, he jokes. After the perfume comes out, the public becomes the mirror.
He and the Hermès Parfums chairperson are the ones who decide on what ultimately comes out. But he emphasizes the amount of personal responsibility he takes on, and the nerve-wracking level of exposure that springs from it, which he never experienced when he was working for Symrise. “You are the creator”, he says. “Why would you saddle another person with the responsibility of choosing?”
But despite a choice of excerpts that hinge on his resistance to the tyranny of marketing and trends, or to the gendering of fragrances, Jean-Claude Ellena is not about to lead a Perfumer's Liberation Front. (He spoke a bit more forcefully when collecting an award at the 2010 Fragrance Foundation gala, when he asked the industry to “trust the perfumers”.)
A young perfumer picks up on the word “resistance”: “We are all apprentice-resistance fighters”, she says, “and we would like to follow you.” Ellena has no advice to give her. Then the chairman of the SFP, Patrick Saint-Yves, underlines the fact than in a craft so strongly predicated on know-how, this know-how must be passed on to younger generations: what is Jean-Claude Ellena – who never takes on apprentices – doing about this? There is a pause. Then: “I write.” When Saint-Yves insists, saying that Ellena himself had Edmond Roudnitska as a teacher, Ellena explains that he never received lessons from the master. He primarily learned from his writings, though he came to disagree with some of Roudnitska’s stances. This was in fact why, when he was approached by the Presses Universitaires de France to update the Que sais-je?, he answered he could only write an entirely new book as he could endorse neither the ideas nor the style.
Patricia de Nicolaï also speaks up. In his Journal d’un parfumeur, Ellena says he keeps certain perfumes as benchmarks. She’d like to know which ones. Ellena answers that the references are not olfactory, but technical: diffusion, long-lastingness, sillage. He quotes Diorissimo, Eau Sauvage, Habit Rouge and Bois des Iles.Patricia de Nicolaï prods him: “And among more recent ones?” Pause. Smile. “I’m a bit old”, he jokes, adding that he very seldom smells what’s on the market, except when going through duty-free shops.
What stands out in this discussion is, ultimately, Ellena’s particular brand of solipsism – he himself uses the word “narcissistic” several times. As though Jean-Claude Ellena, who has landed every perfumer’s dream job, could only be a point of reference for Jean-Claude Ellena.
Might it be partly because of his unique position, of the freedom and trust he is granted by Hermès, that his language has become increasingly self-referential? However free he is, he also bears the responsibility of maintaining the olfactory identity he has forged for the brand. And in resorting more than once to the metaphor of the mirror, Ellena may be hinting in a roundabout way that he is aware of the limitations he has imposed upon himself.
Somehow, I’d like to think that underneath his self-control, his limpid austerity, Jean-Claude is damming up a torrent of sensuality; that the mirror may actually be the dam that is holding him back. He often brings up a childhood memory in interviews: the smell of jasmine blending with the sweat of jasmine pickers, which aroused a strong sensual emotion in him as a young boy. As for his first erotic emotion, he has said he owes it to the jasmine and cumin accord of Diorella, the scent worn by the woman who was to become his wife. A drop of that sweat is of course to be found in the masterful Déclaration. But clearly, this underlying sensuality has been reined in, watered down, as though it were too facile… or perhaps too revealing? He’s not saying, and of course it’s not the kind of question one asks during a public discussion…
But I can’t help wondering what would happen if Ellena let loose and betrayed his own aesthetics. Steaming up that mirror could be fun. Or breaking it.
Fascinating entry.
RépondreSupprimerI applaud the effort made by Jean-Claude Ellena to share insights and information, especially as he seems to be such a self-contained gentleman. It can't be easy to open up to any degree, even with a sympathetic and well-informed critical audience.
I very much hope to gain access to the English translation of his "Journal d'un parfumeur" next year.
And I love the thought of such a discerning chap experiencing the sensory overload of duty-free stores. I find them overwhelming so he must feel like a fish out of water at times, poor man.
cheerio, Anna in Edinburgh
Anna, meanwhile I think you can already pre-order the translation of his "Le Parfum" on Amazon, that's coming out before. Both books are very interesting, limpid and pedagogical.
RépondreSupprimerFor a perfumer to speak in front of colleagues is I think a bit more stressful than in front of journalists or "civilians": JCE joked about how, whenever he was at a dinner party, he became the main attraction because of his work.
Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to buy a book in November.
RépondreSupprimerThanks for this post! It is revealing to hear the perfumers' questions as his answers, and the perspectives that you add are illuminating. I am very much looking forward to the translation of his book! ~~nozknoz
RépondreSupprimerBellatrix, I'm glad you enjoyed the write-up.
RépondreSupprimerNozknoz, I'm sure than as is the case in all talks by high-profile figures, many questions were left unasked. Still, kudos to JCE for his transparency, and to Hermès for being intelligent enough to understand it is beneficial to their brand image. As our friends in the business world would say, it's clearly the way forward.
RépondreSupprimerIt is incredible how he has created an olfactory brand for Hermes. NO one else has done that.
RépondreSupprimerCarla, I wouldn't quite say that: I think Daniela Andrier has also done this for Prada, though not being the in-house perfumer she is not put forward by the brand. Balenciaga could be going in that direction, but it's too early to tell...
RépondreSupprimerNevertheless, it isn't a common policy in luxury houses and is an intelligent move.
Yes, that's true. But isn't she given more direction from Prada than Hermes gives.
RépondreSupprimerI haven't the faintest idea... But the important thing is the vision, whether it springs from the work of a perfumer and a creative director, or a perfumer alone. Not all perfumers can art-direct themselves, but they may have a manner and style that clicks with a house and gives its scents consistency. The "Candy" break is interesting in that respect, because it breaks the Infusion series, yet retains some of its olfactory marks.
RépondreSupprimerJust read your Candy review. I had read somewhere else about how Andrier works with Prada. But I don't remember if I read it on Bois de Jasmin or in the Wall Street Journal...
RépondreSupprimerCarla, then it must be true. To get back to JCE, one thing that intrigued me in his book was that he was working on riffs on the older Hermès perfumes. That's something I would love to smell. It would be an interesting tie-in with their heritage (but would they resurrect Doblis or Germaine Cellier's Eau d'Herbes, please?).
RépondreSupprimerThanks very much indeed for this.
RépondreSupprimerI wonder, did JCE make a distinction between a perfumer such as himself - who strives to adhere to a very distinct personal style and aesthetic - and what one might call a more jobbing perfumer?
It seems to me that there are several perfumers out there who are highly competent, but don't necessarily seem interested in cultivating a personal style. Of course, in many cases, they may simply not have an opportunity to display a personal signature: they have to keep to the terms of a particular brief and, as you say, they have to run the risk of their original formulae being distorted beyond recognition.
But I'm also thinking about someone like Kurkdjian, who does now have his own line, and yet doesn't appear to want to claim any specific aesthetic territory.
Perdolaise, no, he didn't speak about it, possibly because it might not have been very considerate to his colleagues. Unless you're working directly with perfumers, if they haven't got opportunities to express themselves, I imagine it's not so easy to know whether they do have a distinctive style or could develop one given the chance... And bear in mind that JCE was already far along in his career when he got the Hermès job.
RépondreSupprimerI'm not quite sure I follow you 100% on Francis K. The consensus seems to be that in his brand, he re-explored accords he'd already used in other products. But as far as I've understood, he and his backers want to establish the house solidly, so perhaps remaining in familiar territory was a deliberate decision, so that there would be some kind of continuity, but displacing the focus from his client brands to his status as author. I've also got the feeling the house wants to establish itself as neo-classic rather than niche. Venturing into weird new territories might not have achieved this.
Wonderful entry. Thank you for sharing this and your reflection and perspective, too. It's interesting to me that we feel we connect with people through their art, and then we want them to connect with us in turn, by doing more revealing art or by simply sharing more in the public eye. I can't think of another environment that produces exactly that kind of cycle.
RépondreSupprimerAnotherperfumeblog, that's true... What I really appreciate about JCE's approach is that he is making an effort to reach out to the public, to explain his art in intelligible, pedagogical terms. I'm glad publishers afford him that opportunity. I'm sure other perfumers would love to express themselves but might not have that liberty. Of course not everyone, as Persolaise was saying above, has the consistent oeuvre and style that allows for such a discourse.
RépondreSupprimer