But she says it's not so much her nose that creates the scents, but her memory – trained to recognise thousands of ingredients, and summon them up as she desires, with all the emotions and memories they provoke.
— Columnist Caroline Wyatt, writing about perfumer Isabelle Doyen in “How France Makes Sense of Scents“, in the BBC News.
Gauloises, garlic and pissoirs have long defined the olfactory essence of Paris. But there is another, more appealing odour wafting along its tree-lined boulevards. It's a smell like no other. The scent that only those with money to burn and a desire to smell truly individual can afford. It's the smell of a bespoke perfume…