Who here likes old-fashioned aldehydic florals? I do. I love their whiff of silk stockings, champagne and evenings at the opera. I adore how tidy and elegant these fragrances are compared to my messy, cat-hair fluffed life. I even appreciate the genre’s inscrutability to the general public weaned on fruit, soliflores and patchouli.
If you’re like me, you’ve been impatient to smell Frédéric Malle Superstitious, classified by the company as a “grand aldehyde floral…”
The one thing I was asking Frédéric, the only request I had, is not to have a perfume with a scent of a chocolate or vanilla, whatever, that is very a la mode at the moment, you know? That’s all about...gourmandize they call it. Like we can’t eat food. It’s forbidden, so let’s make the perfume smell like a chocolate. [...] If you want a chocolate, go buy a chocolate. Don’t go and perfume yourself with chocolate.
— Alber Elbaz on the new Alber Elbaz par Frédéric Malle Superstitious. Read more at Alber Elbaz Thinks Fragrances Shouldn't Smell Like Food: "If You Want Chocolate, Go Buy a Chocolate" at W Magazine.
Alber Elbaz and Frédéric Malle talk about the new Alber Elbaz par Frédéric Malle Superstitious. A little over 7 minutes.
They decided to adapt a grand aldehyde floral on which Malle had been working with perfumer Dominique Ropion. Chanel No 5 gets its lively, polished quality from an aldehyde (a type of organic compound) that was synthesised in the early 20th century, and Malle and Ropion wanted to revisit the ingredient in a modern, original version. Yet Ropion’s incarnation was deemed “too perfect” by Elbaz, who asked for it to be “a little bit more punk”.
— Alber Elbaz par Frédéric Malle Superstitious launches this week. Read more at Alber Elbaz and Frédéric Malle: when fashion meets fragrance at Financial Times.
Alber Elbaz and Frédéric Malle talk to Vogue Arabia about the upcoming Alber Elbaz par Frédéric Malle Superstitious.