Chief perfumer of Hermes Jean-Claude Ellena about the perfumes of the Hermessence collection. Chief perfumer of Hermes Jean-Claude Ellena about the perfumes of the Hermessence collection Fragrances created by Jean Claude ELLENA

Jean-Claude Ellena's future was predetermined from childhood, when he and his grandmother collected jasmine to create fragrances. The perfumers were Jean-Claude's father, Peter Ellena, who worked at Chiris, and his brother Bernard. Jean-Claude calls himself self-taught.

Jean-Claude Ellena says that his work was mainly influenced by the people he met and their work. His scents are always reminiscent of nature, and Jean-Claude himself often compares them to some color. The perfumer is a minimalist: he wears exclusively white shirts, uses no more than 30 components for his work, and never uses perfume.

Jean-Claude began his career at the age of sixteen as a worker at the Grasse factory where his father worked. Here he received his first knowledge of fragrances during night shifts. Then in 1968 he attended the newly opened Givaudan perfumery school in Switzerland, where he was one of the first students. After receiving his education, he began mixing substances and essences, searching for his own style. An important event for the development of a perfumer was the acquaintance with the work of Edmond Rudnitsky. Jean-Claude adopted his concept, within the framework of which all compositions are written as a whole, without breaking down into top, middle notes and base. Until 1976, the perfumer remained in Geneva, and in 1983 he moved to Paris, where he continued to work at Givaudan, then at Roure-Givandan and Haarmaan & Reimer. In 1990, Jean-Clone Ellena became one of the founders of the international Osmothèque fragrance archive. In 2000, he created his own perfume company, The Different Company, which his daughter would later create fragrances for. Celine, who will also choose this profession. In 2004, the haute couture house Hermès appointed Jean-Claude Ellena as chief perfumer and entrusted him with the creation of new fragrances. This job is the best for a perfumer, because here his freedom is not limited, and he can do what he loves - high-quality interesting perfumes, and not fragrances for everyone.

Jean-Claude Ellena, who has been creating unique fragrances for the Hermes fashion house for many years, is called the best nose of our time. And these are not just big words, because he is one of the few whose scents become a hit every time. He is the author of the popular new product of 2013, Jour d'Hermes (by the way, quite recently, an updated version of the fragrance was born - Jour d'Hermes Gardenia, created exclusively from floral notes: gardenia, evoking the aromas of rose, tuberose and jasmine) , as well as about 15 more perfumes released under this brand.

Why, even Ellen’s principle of creating perfume is not the same as others - he doesn’t break them down into notes: “ I offer the whole aroma at once: you inhale the whole bouquet, then little by little the aromas dissolve, go away, leaving a mark in your soul.”

Jean-Claude's works have always been characterized by a minimalist, natural character. He loves to work with natural raw materials and, as a rule, includes only a few components in the composition, preferring not to overload the aroma with variety, but forcing it to play and reveal all its shades. Surprisingly, despite a collection of more than 200 scents, today he uses only 20-30 of them in his work!

Recently, the charming Christine Nagel joined Jean-Claude Ellena's team. You probably know about it if you have ever heard the famous Eaudemoiselle from Givenchy or Miss Dior Cherie from Dior. She also has experience creating fragrances for such famous brands as Cartier, Thierry Mugler, Lancome. Christine also worked with Jo Malone for two years - she managed to take part in the creation of, perhaps, the majority of perfume compositions that you will find in your home.

What unites the calm and constant Jean-Claude Ellena and the energetic Christine Nagel? We talked with the masters of their craft themselves about how they work together and what awaits Hermès perfumes in the near future.

You create completely different scents: insinuating, minimalistic - from Jean-Claude, and so baroque, positive - from Christine. How do you get along within the same fashion house?

Jean-Claude Ellena: Actually, we are not so different. Yes, we express ourselves in perfumes in different ways, you are right. But overall, we have more in common: a passion for work, a life dedicated to one thing. I feel very comfortable with Christine, because sincerity is important to me in my work. Perfumery is an art that should be recognized by the public. That is, when listening to the aroma, you must understand who created it, what served as the source. Christine is sincere in what she does, and that is why the compositions she creates are so recognizable. I will never force her to work the way I do, to continue my line. The main thing is to be yourself and it will be wonderful if she brings something new and special to Hermes.

“The main thing is not the scent itself, but the approach to working on it”

Christine: I worked a lot with different perfume houses. In this case, you are asked to create something in an existing brand style. And at this stylistic level, in the kind of characters I create in my compositions, Jean-Claude and I have a lot in common. We prefer the same materials, we both seek our truth in perfumery. Jean-Claude, of course, is an absolute purist in his work, his lines are cleaner. I am distinguished by my “Latin” character - I am more emotional, even in conversation I constantly gesticulate! So, when working on compositions, I rely more on physical, tactile sensations. And I think that I will develop precisely this aspect, because I am a woman and it’s time to bring something truly feminine to Hermes!

Zh.K: When I catch her at work, it’s like... fireworks! She can come up with 20 ideas in the time it takes me to think about one. This does not mean that all 20 are good, of course... (laughs - ed.)

K.: How is that! All 20 are good! Simply, each in its own way...

JK: True, it’s very interesting to watch Christine at work. I'm not sure it would be as interesting for me. I am very calm and do everything measuredly and rationally. She has a completely different way of looking at things and materials. She keeps everything in her head, relying only on her memory.

K.: And then I literally have an explosion of ideas, which I begin to polish and bring to perfection.

You both have enormous experience in creating a wide variety of perfume compositions. Among them there are also strange notes. Is there a scent that you remember, but which has not yet been translated into perfume?

Zh.K: There is one such thing - it’s the smell of a burn! That is, not burning, but burns - this is something more physical. I have already developed this idea and partially implemented it in Paprika Brasil from the Hermessense series, but I am still looking for a way to make it more clear. And this is an incredibly exciting process, because I love to create something concrete and I am absolutely happy when I succeed.

K.: I always have a lot of ideas in my head, it’s difficult to single out just one. Sometimes it takes years to formulate the scent I strive to embody, but this is the magic of our business, this is what makes us live, what makes us breathe, what motivates us. It's truly a miracle when something you've been thinking about for so long finally comes to fruition.

At the end of June, Jean-Claude Ellena, a significant person for the entire modern perfume industry, visited Moscow, changing the approach to creating and understanding fragrances. Elena Stafieva talked with him about the present and future of perfumery

Rarely in life do you feel such certainty as when meeting Jean-Claude Ellena. Even if you don’t know what he did for the history of perfumery, the way he thinks, the way he talks about fragrances, the cultural context in which he places them, unmistakably indicates the scale of his personality. And the influence of this personality on modern perfumery is colossal.

And he did a lot - in fact, he created it. At the turn of the 80s and 90s, perfumery, like fashion, was very defined, obvious, straightforward. The aromas of the girls in jackets with wide shoulders were complex, bright and filling the entire surrounding space. Until Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert Bvlgari appeared in 1992, made by Jean-Claude Ellena.

Citrus, grass and wood - a clear, simple, watercolor scent. His style will also be called watercolor, which will form a new approach to perfumery, to the way of using aroma in society as such. Instead of the famous formula “your spirits enter the room before you”, something opposite was proposed. Aroma is a personal matter for everyone, like their personal aura, which does not spread to everyone around and does not fill the entire space. The insinuation of sound, the comfort of contact, the transparency of the olfactory boundaries of the personality, when the wall of smell did not fence it off from the world.

In the next decade, Ellena became the in-house perfumer at Hermès. Over the previous half century, the most prominent perfumers, from Edmond Roudnitska to Guy Robert, worked for Hermès, it had a great history - but, like almost everyone then, there was no single olfactory idea behind it. Ellena completely changed the perfumery look of the house, making it whole and instantly recognizable. Over the course of 10 years, there were also great commercial hits - the Jardin (“Gardens”) series and the first exclusive line in the recent history of luxury houses Hermessence. In general, the degree of recognition of Ellena is unattainable - as well as the degree of brilliant, virtuoso simplicity, in which he simply has no equal.

For me, the one who created First Van Cleef & Arpels and the one who created Bvlgari's Thé Vert and Hermès' "Gardens" are two different people.
You're right. My daughter gave me an explanation. She said, “When you made First, you made a perfume for your mother. Now you are making fragrances for me.” She found the right move - that's the answer.

It's very interesting because you are the one who created the modern perfume style. You have come up with a new approach, when aromas sit very close to a person, when the smell is something very private. How did it come about? When, how, why did everything change?
Because of China. And then because of Japan. I was interested in China 10 years before I went there for the first time. I was very interested in Chinese painting, I paint myself...

Oil or watercolor?
Watercolor - because it's easier: you only need a pencil, a brush, a box of paints - ah voilà! Painting with oils is much more difficult. When I was in China, I realized a few things. Among other things, I understood the importance of emptiness. This is the big difference between Eastern painting and the classical fine art of the West. In the West, a painting always has a completeness and certainty of the image. There is no room for your imagination - everything on the canvas is already organized by the artist. And when I discovered this power of emptiness, I began to think that maybe this was the answer for me too, because at that time I already understood traditional classic perfume. I mean, I already knew how to make Chanel No. 5 - it was easy for me. But this was not my future - I did not imagine it on this path, I had to break with tradition. I didn’t deny the past, although they told me then that I was a rebel - I didn’t believe it, I thought that I was quite nice. (Laughs.) But over time I agreed - I was a rebel, I realized it. I wanted to change the tradition, I rejected some things - the traditional perfume classification, the traditional way of composing fragrances. China awakened all this, and Japan developed it even further.

What was the turning point - Thé Vert?
15 years passed between First and Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert Bvlgari, everything was quite slow. It took me 15 years to come to Thé Vert - yes, that was a turning point. For First I used 60 ingredients, for Thé Vert I used 19. What I learned is that you don't need many different ingredients to express a lot of different things. And before, instead of expressing a lot with the help of a few means, I took so many things to express just a little. This came with age, and I began to approach everything this way. I tried to go deeper and deeper. And Asia gave me the answer to the question I was asking myself.

A new era began in 1992 - with your Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert. At the same time, Feminite du Bois Shiseido by Serge Lutens, made by Pierre Bourdon and Christopher Sheldrake, was released, where they used the famous Iso E Super molecule in significant quantities.
Significant? Only 10% is nothing. And if we are talking about woodiness and Iso E Super, then long before them this molecule was in Bois des Iles Chanel. Feminite du Bois was so important because Serge Lutens changed the idea of what type of scent could be. It was not so much a question of the product, but of how to think about perfume, how to approach it. Because Feminite du Bois was not Lutens's first fragrance - before that there was Nombre Noir, and it was a chypre made in the classical way, technically very well made. But he was not interesting because there was no story. He didn't say anything - he just said, "That's nice." And nothing else. Feminite du Bois began to tell a story - about molecules, about what it means, about the origin of the ingredients. It wasn't new, but the approach was interesting. It was a niche approach - not a marketing approach, not a mass perfumery approach.

So the point is to tell the story? Was it important for you to tell it 20 years ago?
Certainly. When I made Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert Bvlgari, it was not a concept, it was a story. Before that there was Eau de Campagne Sisley - and that was also history. My task was to shape the approach. Raw materials, ingredients - these matter, but these are only tools, not a way of doing things. How you do things is what matters most. These or those materials in themselves do not mean anything - the approach is important.

Why is “concept” opposed to “history” - and not in favor of “concept”?
First of all, I don't like the word "concept". This is such a design approach. “I want to make a table on two legs” - here, I sent you the concept. So, so what? To treat perfumery in this way means not to understand anything about it. I prefer to talk about ideas, about the crystallization of ideas. You have an idea and you gather a lot of things around it. The concept is “make a rose,” but it's worthless if you don't have an idea of how to make that rose in a new way, how to talk about that rose in a new way. Then the process begins: what natural raw materials do I want to take, will I use new molecules or is this not necessary? At some point, if you have your own approach, you do something unique, different from others, which has not been done before. It's like an artist's job - to find your way among ready-made samples. There's a lot of black - maybe add some blue? But not this blue one, but maybe the one where there is more green? And at some point - yes, here it is! You have an idea, and then you are looking for a way to implement it. The interesting thing about this work is that on the one hand it is very intellectual, but on the other hand it is very intuitive and involves a lot of experimentation, because of course you cannot keep all the ingredients in your head.

Your love for the simplicity of expressing the complex, for a fragrance as a deeply personal story, for an idea as the basis of everything - this is close to the Hermès approach and to luxury in general.
It was a love story. I'll tell you a simple story. My arrival at Hermès took a year: we talked, discussed something, took time to decide. There was one week when I often came to Hermès and met people at the reception - they answered phone calls and called a taxi. And one of them looked at me and said: “Monsieur Ellena, you suit Hermès so well!” I was very pleased - it was an important sign for me, because within a week of my visits they recognized that I belonged to Hermès. We share the same vision, the same values, the same way of thinking, where the product is always more important than the business. And we worked well with Jean-Louis Dumas, because first there was always perfume, and then we looked at how we would do business. Clearly, it works.

Are there any new types of scents waiting for us? A few years ago everyone started making disgusting scents - something called ugly.
This is a marketing approach! They are there thinking of ways to impress you - but this is stupid! And we are being very foolish in accepting this.

That is, to create the scent of dust or asphalt...
This is a marketing approach. At Hermès we will never make dust smell.

Thank you that you won't!
The marketing approach is now a disaster, a real disaster. Nothing new is being done - everythingjust to make you want to buy.

But what do you think about the future of the perfume industry? What will things look like in 10 years?
I don't know. Be careful with this - there are many people who will tell you about the future. But when you re-read what they said in 5 years, there will be nothing worthwhile.

Jean Claude Ellena was born in 1947 in the south of France, in the capital of fragrances - Grasse, into a family of hereditary perfumers. From a young age, he knew that he would continue the family traditions. At the age of 17, he already began to create his first independent compositions under the guidance of his father. The future genius in the world of scents created one of his first fragrances, First, created for the House of Van Cleef & Arpel in 1975. Then and later, throughout his entire creative career, he did not think about the sales market and making excess profits, but looked for sophistication and simplicity. He managed to achieve a special purity of style, characteristic only of his scents. Later, Ellena became a student of the famous French perfumer Edmond Roudnitsky, creator of the first perfume of the House of Hermes - Eau d'Hermes, released in 1951.

Jean-Claude Ellena worked for Yves Saint Laurient and Bvlgari, and on June 7, 2004, Jean-Claude Ellena became a perfumer at the House of Hermes (and today he is one of two residents of a fashionable perfume house in the world, the second perfumer is Jacques Polge, a resident of Chanel).

Among perfumers, Jean-Claude Ellena is known for his original approach to the professional definition of composition. “I always have a laptop with me. If I come across an interesting smell, I write down its notes. These 'cheat sheets' can be turned into fragrance in less than a week." Jean Claude Ellena can write an exact recipe for a fragrance, which will include all the ingredients, formulas, calculations of volumes without testing in practice.

He does not use splash colognes, avoids deodorants, and does not use perfumed soaps. “I do this to protect myself,” the perfumer admitted. “When I inhale the smells around me, I begin to work, breaking down the aromas into their components. So I try to avoid extraneous odors and concentrate on those that I create myself.” “Living in a hotel presents a certain challenge for me. For example, too much detergent is used on bedding. To me it's a terrible smell. As soon as I lay my head on the pillow, I start thinking about the composition of the scent.”
In one of his interviews, to the question “How can a perfumery aroma emphasize individuality, Jean-Claude Ellena answered the following: Aroma is a matter of choice and taste of a person, and therefore of his culture. It's also a matter of the game you intend to bring to life. A fragrance has many levels of message to the world. Fragrance can be both a weapon of seduction and self-defense. When a person wears any perfume, you will not necessarily guess the essence of his personality, because there is a double game. If the aroma is conquering in essence of the composition, but the person himself is timid, he uses it for self-defense, and on the other hand, to emphasize his conquering essence.

There are aromas, on the contrary, - light, transparent, but they can also be used as a weapon of defense and as a weapon of conquest. It happens that the spirit of a conqueror rages within a person, but he does not want to discover it - and disguises himself with a modest aroma. This way a person can protect himself from unnecessary interest and hide his essence. But in any case, scent is a way of communication. It’s just like a voice - you can speak quietly, or you can shout, playing with the aroma as you please.”
What should you consider when choosing a scent? According to J.C. Ellen, there are many factors, for example, the mood with which you start the day. Intention - what weapon will I choose for myself today? Some perfume houses deliberately try to associate their scent with a star. Ellena is against this approach. A person should be himself, and not imitate someone.
Is it possible to mix several scents? :"Why not? Some get along well with each other, others don't. You have to try: one on the right ear, another on the left. But at Hermes we prefer not to play with the mixture arbitrarily, but to offer a ready-made complex bouquet that everyone is free to decipher in their own way. “

Why do many women like their husbands' colognes?
“This phenomenon contains a huge complex of information, it is a subtle psychological game. On the one hand, a woman strives to show: I am yours. On the other hand, she seems to be saying: since I wear your scent, know: we are one and you cannot live without me. That is, it strives for complete fusion. With all its dangers. “

From the point of view of Jean-Claude Ellena, why does the same fragrance sound different on the skin of different people, this answer to the question is as follows:

“It depends on many factors. First of all, each person’s skin already has its own aroma, which largely depends on what you eat. There are other factors - the degree of fatigue of the body, the intensity of metabolism. And perfumes only fit into this information, acquiring new aromatic details. “

Besides the well-known places where perfume should be applied - behind the ear, on the wrist - are there any other correct ones? For example, is it possible to put perfume on clothes?

“ One charming lady, my colleague, Madame Véronique Gautier, always sprays perfume on her clothes and hair. I'll tell you a secret, there is one place, on the back of the head, under the hair, where the scent lasts especially long. I also prefer to apply perfume on clothes - of course, you shouldn’t experiment with a white blouse, perfume can leave a stain. By the way, perfume on clothes conveys the aroma in the purest form - because it does not mix with the smell of the skin. But in general this is a very personal question of inner freedom. “

How long can perfume be stored without losing its true aroma, and in what conditions should bottles be stored?

“The refrigerator is an ideal home for perfumes; they can be stored there for two years. Because the first enemies of spirits are light and warmth.”

What makes a perfumer’s “nose” tired?

"Brain. There are thousands of olfactory stories in my head that I have to tell as clearly as possible - this alone makes you sleep deprived. Each new Hermes fragrance is a bouquet of my enormous efforts, this is me in different circumstances, countries, seasons. For example, to create my latest fragrance, Osmanthe Yunnan, the fifth in my Hermessence collection created exclusively for Hermes, I ran for several kilometers, trying not to lose the inviting, delicate, silky fragrance of the osmanthus bushes growing near the Serenity Pavilion in the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was a colossal effort to hold onto an elusive substance and then create a poetic composition based on it. If it touched someone's heart, I had accomplished my mission. “

J.K. Ellena practically never uses cologne in her life, being content with a variety of smells at work. The only scent that he has not changed for many years is Eau d’Hermes, the first Hermes perfume, which was created in 1951.

Talking about the essence of the profession and comparing it with travel, Ellena admits: “I think that when I die, I will definitely exclaim: “Ugh!” I didn’t manage to get around everything.”

Today, as the chief perfumer of the ancient Parisian House of Hermes, he is at the peak of his perfumery career.

He believes that Sydneysiders smell like fish, Romans smell like garlic, Parisians smell like fried chicken. His armpits are a “perfume-free zone.” His goal was never to create a fragrance that would sell well. The famous perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena admitted this in one of his interviews. “People in different countries smell differently. And as a professional, I can feel these differences. In Sydney they love fish, in Rome they eat garlic, and in Paris they eat chicken. This could not but affect the smell coming from people.”

He does not use splash colognes, avoids deodorants, and does not use perfumed soaps.
“I do this to protect myself,” the perfumer admitted. “When I inhale the smells around me, I begin to work, sorting out the aromas into their components. So I try to avoid extraneous smells and concentrate on those that I create.”
“Living in a hotel presents a certain challenge for me. For example, too much detergent is used on bedding. To me it's a terrible smell. As soon as I lay my head on the pillow, I start thinking about the composition of the scent.”
“I always have a laptop with me. If I come across an interesting smell, I write down its notes. These 'cheat sheets' can be turned into fragrance in less than a week." Surprisingly, Jean-Claude Ellena can write an exact recipe for a wonderful fragrance, which will include all the ingredients, formulas, calculations of volumes without testing in practice."
The Hermès house, where Mr. Ellena is a resident, unlike many other fashion houses, has a cool attitude towards stars.
One day Oprah Winfrey appeared at the door of Hermès in Paris. She arrived after the store closed and demanded that the salesman let her buy a watch for Tina Turner. The seller refused the celebrity.
“This example proves that for the House of Hermes, stars are not the main thing.
Artists inspire us. I don't do anything to order, I create fragrances for myself. But if they sell, that’s a bonus.”

Fragrances created by Jean Claude ELLENA:

Acqua di Parma Colonia Assoluta (2003, with Bertrand Duchaufour)
Amouage Dia Pour Femme (2002)
Eau Parfumee au The Vert by Bvlgari (1992)
Eau Parfumee au The Vert Extreme by Bvlgari (1996)
Bvlgari Pour Femme (Original version, 1984)
Cartier Declaration (1998)
Christian Lacroix Bazar Femme
(2002, with Bertrand Duchaufour & Emilie Copperman) Decleor Aromantic (1999)
Frederic Malle Angliques Sous La Pluie
Frederic Malle Cologne Bigarade
Frederic Malle L"Eau d"Hiver (2003)
Giorgio Armani Emporio Armani Night for her (2003, with Lucas Sieuzac)
Elixir des Merveilles by Hermes (2006)
Hermes Jardin en Mediterrannee (2003)
Hermes Jardin Sur Le Nil (2005)
Hermes Hermessence Ambre Narguile (2004)
Hermes Hermessence Osmanthe Yunnan (2005)
Hermes Hermessence Poivre Samarcande (2004)
Hermes Hermessence Rose Ikebana (2004)
Hermes Hermessence Vetiver Tonka (2004)
Hermes Rocabar (1998, with Gilles Romey and Bernard Bourgeois)
Hermes Terre d'Hermes (2006)
Lalique Eau de Lalique (with Emilie Copperman)
Ambre Extreme by L"Artisan (2001)
Bois Farine by L'Artisan (2003) La Haie Fleurie du Hameau by L'Artisan (1982)
Laura Ashley L"Eau by Laura Ashley
Lily Prune Sublime Vanilla (2001)
Paul & Joe Blanc (2003)
Rectoverso Blue Lagoon (with Christophe Raynaud) Rectoverso Mystery Secret
Rectoverso Sun Sea
Globe by Rochas (1990)
Eau de Campagne by Sisley (1974)
The Different Company Bois d'Iris
The Different Company Divine Bergamote (2003)
The Different Company Osmanthus
The Different Company Rose Poivree
Ulrich de Varens no. 2 (1998)
Urich de Varens UDV Fun for men (2000)
First by Van Cleef & Arpels (1976)
Miss Arpels by Van Cleef & Arpels
Yves Saint Laurent In Love Again (1998)

Interview with Izvestia:

When choosing perfume, we rarely think about the fact that with its help we can make a statement about ourselves without even saying a word to anyone. The subtleties of the game of fragrances were revealed to Izvestia columnist Lidia Shamina in an exclusive interview by the chief perfumer of the ancient Parisian fashion house Hermes, Jean-Claude Ellena.

news: How can a perfume scent emphasize individuality?

Jean-Claude Ellena: Aroma is a matter of choice and taste of a person, and therefore of his culture. It's also a matter of the game you intend to bring to life. A fragrance has many levels of message to the world. Fragrance can be both a weapon of seduction and self-defense. When a person wears any perfume, you will not necessarily guess the essence of his personality, because there is a double game. If the aroma is conquering in essence of the composition, but the person himself is timid, he uses it for self-defense, and on the other hand, to emphasize his conquering essence.

news: Are there any ways to discover “your scent”? What to follow?

Ellena: There are many factors. For example, the mood with which you start the day. Intention - what weapon will I choose for myself today? Some perfume houses deliberately try to associate their scent with a star. I am against this approach. A person should be himself, and not imitate someone. Our House prefers to use aromas to tell stories, create desires, and make a person travel in search of himself.

news: Is it possible to mix several scents?

Ellena: Why not? Some get along well with each other, others don't. You have to try: one on the right ear, another on the left. But at Hermes we prefer not to play with the mixture arbitrarily, but to offer a ready-made complex bouquet that everyone is free to decipher in their own way.

news: There are three notes in the composition: the initial note, the heart note and the ending note. Whose role is decisive?

Ellena: That's not how I write my perfumes. I have fundamentally different definitions. For example, Energetic. Carefree. Long presence. Restrained energy. Whole. Accurate. Alive. Elegant. I offer the whole aroma at once: you inhale the whole bouquet, then little by little the aromas dissolve and go away, leaving a mark in your soul. I'm more of a writer than a perfumer: every fragrance for me is either a novel, or a poem, or an poem. Each genre has its own style, that is, ingredients. For me, smells are words, I can make stories out of them, I have many doors through which I go to my characters. I don't know how to explain it otherwise.

news: Then explain: why do many women like their husbands' colognes?

Ellena: This phenomenon contains a huge complex of information, it’s a subtle psychological game. On the one hand, a woman strives to show: I am yours. On the other hand, she seems to be saying: since I wear your scent, know: we are one and you cannot live without me. That is, it strives for complete fusion. With all its dangers.

news: Why does the same scent sound different on different people's skin?

Ellena: It depends on many factors. First of all, each person's skin already has its own aroma, which largely depends on what you eat. There are other factors - the degree of fatigue of the body, the intensity of metabolism. And perfumes only fit into this information, acquiring new aromatic details.

news: Besides the well-known places where perfume should be applied - behind the ear, on the wrist - are there any other correct ones? For example, is it possible to put perfume on clothes?

Ellena: One charming lady, my colleague, Madame Véronique Gautier, always sprays perfume on her clothes and hair. I'll tell you a secret, there is one place, on the back of the head, under the hair, where the scent lasts especially long. I also prefer to apply perfume on clothes - of course, you shouldn’t experiment with a white blouse, perfume can leave a stain. By the way, perfume on clothes conveys the aroma in the purest form - because it does not mix with the smell of the skin. But in general this is a very personal question of inner freedom.

news: The French perfumery tradition includes parfum or extrait, eau de parfum, eau de toilet - according to the degree of alcohol content and decreasing persistence. How to properly combine different flavor consistencies?

Ellena: Parfum is my favorite because perfumes never come in spray packaging, you can feel them on the skin of your fingers. This is a very sensual thing, an intimate message with an overtone of temptation, while spray is more a matter of hygiene and self-care. Someone said it well: “In the eau de toilette I am lunar, but in the extract I am solar.” You can apply parfum to your body, and after getting dressed, spray yourself with eau de toilette, and this will be the final note of your image, like spectacular jewelry, a sort of resounding click.

news: Which type of scent lasts longer - spicy or fresh?

Ellena: The most persistent are the so-called oriental ones: amber, vanilla.

news: How long can perfume be stored without losing its true aroma, and in what conditions should bottles be stored?

Ellena: The refrigerator is an ideal home for perfumes; they can be stored there for two years. Because the first enemies of spirits are light and heat.

news: Is there a fashion for fragrances and how often does it change? Are you taking these changes into account?

Ellena: Fragrances always reflect economic and social conflicts. They have no future, they are all in the present, this is a mirror of their time. Every time I create a new perfume, I am confused - what will I write with my message, will I fit into my era?

news: Oenologists, who have to taste champagne all day to determine the bouquet, complain that their gums get tired. What makes a perfumer’s “nose” tired?

Ellena: Brain. There are thousands of olfactory stories in my head that I must tell as clearly as possible - this alone makes you sleep deprived. Each new Hermes fragrance is a bouquet of my enormous efforts, this is me in different circumstances, countries, seasons. For example, to create my latest fragrance, Osmanthe Yunnan, the fifth in my Hermessence collection created exclusively for Hermes, I ran for several kilometers, trying not to lose the inviting, delicate, silky fragrance of the osmanthus bushes growing near the Serenity Pavilion in the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was a colossal effort to hold onto an elusive substance and then create a poetic composition based on it. If it touched someone's heart, I had accomplished my mission.

news: Do you prefer one particular scent or do you change them?

Ellena: In my life I practically never use cologne - the smells at work are enough for me. My choice is only one scent that I have not changed for several decades - this is Eau d'Hermes, the first Hermes perfume, which was created in 1951.

news: Recently everyone was interested in Suskind's "Perfume". Is it true that you can control a crowd with scent?

Ellena: I hope no. Everyone perceives the same aroma in their own way, everyone’s sense of smell is different.

news: Is a keen sense of smell an innate gift or can this sense be trained?

Ellena: Training plays a big role, but it is quite easy. The main thing is that you have to be very curious, just crazy, in order to devote your whole life to smell and smells. To create in this area, emotional perception must always be at its best. There are two verbs in the French language - sentir (to smell) and resentir (to perceive), so the second one is the essence of the profession of a perfumer. Did I explain it well? It could be simpler: my dog has a better sense of smell than me. But since she has no imagination, she won't make a good perfumer.