Kategorie: BEAUTY

„Hands on Dries van Noten“

Words: Junior Lodge

The French perfumer Marie Salamagne has crafted an eau de parfum for Dries van Noten’s new Impossible Collection. Soie Malaquais is a deeply intense and opulent fragrance featuring a silky scent with succulent notes of blackcurrant and bergamot. Complementing the sumptuously rich scent is a well-crafted bottle conjoining Delft porcelain with deep burgundy glass. Salamagne’s fragrance takes its name from the store adorning the Belgian designer’s name in Paris.

In a Zoom call, Salamagne spoke vividly of the creative collaboration by celebrating the opportunity to work for van Noten by underlining the fashion’s designer role as a generous and humane source of inspiration. Indeed, Salamagne’s creative spark for her new fragrance was ignited by a visit to van Noten’s boutique on Quai Malaquais in Paris’ sixth arrondissement. The nature of this inspiration chimes fully with Salamagne’s favoured approach to delve deep into the creative soul of the commissioning designer. The Quai Malaquais boutique piqued the perfumer’s senses with its palette of vibrant colours and studious state lent by wooden floors and vintage furniture. The creator of Soie Malaquais declared “I found a silk dress and immediately wanted to recreate the scent of silk, which is very specific and unique, and combine with something softer, more gourmand, mixed with chestnut.” She invited me next time “to smell and eat a chestnut and maybe you will inhale the bridge between silk and chestnut. This was my impossible combination – an unexpected blend of silk and chestnut.”

In response to the question of what Soie Malaquais conjured, Salamagne’s response was swift and sharp – “it might catapult you to different places because it is a multi-faceted and colourful fragrance. It conveys the notion of happiness, colour, ease and comfort for everybody. Yet, the addition of bergamot, black currant on the top note offers something crispier and fizzier, but you might also get something more sensitive with balsamic notes. The vanilla and Peru balsam wrapped with chestnut imbue the fragrance with heightened complexity.”

Salamagne also shared her own approach to creating a new fragrance. “I infuse my perfume designs with a lot of emotions and creating Soie Malaquais was no different. I started with a very strong idea, but most of the time what emerges is something real, true, and emotional. I remain convinced that when sharing a story always resonates with a listener. In creating Soie Malaquais for Dries, I tried to reinterpret his universe, but drawing heavily on my own personal experience.”

At the launch of the Impossible Collection, Dries van Noten remarked with relish of stories being embedded in all his products. That declaration provoked an interest in the story being retailed by Soie Malaquais. “I wanted to combine this note of silk, which hasn’t been made so far in fragrances. And I have always noticed that it has a special and distinct smell by imagining a woman wearing a silk dress on her skin. Silk’s soft yet refined nature was alluring as the fabric (and scent) represented a perfect vehicle to embody the renowned elegance, femininity and colour of van Noten’s fashion.”

As one of 10 perfumers commissioned to contribute fragrances to the Impossible Collection, Salamagne visited Van Noten’s majestically manicured estate perched outside of Lier, Flanders. She spoke effusively about the impact on the design process of the time shared with the globally known Belgian designer. “I think what inspired me also is that we were so lucky that Dries invited us in his fabulous house (and garden). Every nook of the property exudes beauty, everything single object at the house is well carefully chosen so that that one felt transported to another planet. And I think this inspired us even more by smelling numerous items, registering the profusion of colours, being seduced by the special varieties of plants, and imbibing the scents of roses and citrus.”

Salamagne warmed invitingly to the seemingly demanding brief of combining extreme scents in one fragrance. “I am deeply fond of the idea of combining things that would not necessarily fit together because it is the way to emphasize one another.” She drew a parallel from the realm of painting – “this is rather similar to a painter’s use of clair-obscur where if you want to place a figure or item at the front of a scene, you tend to contrast it with something different. I am deeply fond of this approach but pushed it far beyond just combining two opposing elements.”

The Impossible Collection’s promise of gender fluid scents prompted yet another plunge into Salamagne’s approach to perfume design. “I feel really blessed when given the opportunity to work with a designer as I tend to give my best when dialogue induces inspiration. Being asked to undertake an assignment with a set brief is akin to being in a box, and paradoxically, this tends to catapult my own creative freedom. During the design process, you try to understand as best as you can what you would like to express and translate this into reality. I have never thought that a fragrance should be for exclusively for men or women. The beauty of any scent appeals to me, for example, I can fall in love with a scent of bread, and therefore, we can readily register that an emotion can be sparked anywhere. Similarly, we should not be driven by a colour or a sentiment that this is solely for women. Increasingly, one sees men wearing rose scented fragrances and women tend to increasingly wear woods and leathery notes!”

As our languid conversation meandered to a close, a question emerged on the source of professional pride that comes from designing a critically acclaimed fragrance. Salamagne was most demonstrative in stating that “there is something so subjective you cannot control. You can be attracted by the beauty of the bottle and I enamoured with this bottle as it constitutes a piece of art. But you can also be attracted to wear the fragrance as it also offers more than a touch of mystery.”

Salamagne is both unequivocal and disarming on the nature of Soie Malaquais’ target customer. “I firmly believe that fragrances can convey emotions, and therefore, I am far more interested in the emotions being unleashed in a 12-year-old girl or an 85 year-old man. In creating Soie Malaquais, I remember visiting the Dries van Noten boutique an inhaling the wooden furniture and colourful silky dress. That sensual experience triggered a burst of emotions in me but they were confined to that particular location. I am not thinking the Soie Malaquais wearer should be a blonde, 25-yearl old Parisian woman. Such a perspective would be far too narrow and too constricting and the opposite of the spirit of open-mindedness and inclusion that I aspire to convey.”

In concluding our chat, we returned to the personal and professional connection forged between the perfumer and van Noten. Does the design process become more in the context of a human bond emerging between the two creatives? Salamagne confidently stated “most certainly, such a constellation changes a lot as we never work for ourselves. The exercise of professional collaboration also means satisfying a brand and creating an element of alchemy with someone. Alchemy allows you to better understand what is going on or the thrust of expectations. We were all enriched by visiting van Noten’s atelier and seeing him collaborate with various partners. In creating a fragrance, inspiration can spring from anywhere. The feedback that comes from hearing that the perfume bottle will be burgundy or learning its name is not only inspirational but can also leave a huge influence. Having this opportunity to discuss, spend so much time with Dries, you certainly want to give the best of yourself.”

Salamagne’s best design effort should ensure that Soie Malaquais perfume will certainly attract critical and commercial acclaim.