When you create a family of fragrances (unlike when you have children) you can predict their character because you are inventing them. You want them to form a harmonious, happy family. Because I think fragrance should be uplifting and eventually boost your self-esteem. It should give you confidence and make you happy. This is my way of looking at designing fragrances. I’m not tortured as a French poet, or like Tchaikovsky who needed to be miserable to write music. So that’s why I want to have this happy family.
— Perfumer Thierry Wasser talks to AEWorld. Read more at Guerlain Master Perfumer Thierry Wasser Chats Fragrance in The Middle East and Creating His Masterpiece.
For me, fragrance is also a means for getting in touch with my feelings, or coping. It doesn’t have to make me happy or boost my self esteem (although sometimes it does), but it has to be in synch with my mood. When my head is full and I’m being stressed out, putting on EdM Bleue can help make me feel like my head is clearing out and it calms me down. And often when I feel down, I skip the bright and cheery stuff in favor of something deeper and gloomier.
Deep & gloomy is probably not Wasser’s area, although there’s plenty of older Guerlain for that
That is so cute! This post gives me new appreciation for him.
He always seems basically like a nice guy.
I think a little bit more ‘torture’ in his life may have helped him to produce more interesting fragrances – haven’t smelled a ‘must buy’ Guerlain in a decade or more, everything just seems very safe perfumery by numbers.
LOL — hard to resist that one, isn’t it? He seems really nice but I agree they are way safer than they used to be.
Actually, just sneaking in at 9 years old, I did love ‘Arsene Lupin Dandy’ (RIP) – Through this was a Jean Paul Guerlain not a Wasser creation . But since then , nothing at all from Guerlain has grabbed me