But the real memory that was very important for me is, I was at boarding school, playing a lot of sports, as one does. And I must have been about 12, and was still covered in Eau Sauvage. You know when you run and sweat? That sort of smell of, I suppose, myself and the perfume, it was something that I realized then was addictive. And then when I was trying to desperately become a playboy -I was 15 – my mother had some products sent from the States to study, and one of them was Halston Z14. [...] I thought, Wow, this is damned good. I used that stuff for years. First of all, I was probably the only one is Paris who owned it at the time, and I thought I was so goddamn special wearing it. It was the first overdosed use of Iso E Super.
— Frédéric Malle, quoted in Frédéric Malle on the Art of Seduction at W Magazine.
Fascinating! A life in fragrance. I did not know the family’s history with Dior.
I especially like M. Malle’s description of his wife’s responses to Portrait of a Lady (she is addicted to it) and Dans Tes Bras (she keeps far from it even though it was made for her).
My favorite quote:
“It’s like jamming. The way I work with perfumers, it’s exactly like that.”
Fragrance is music for the nose.