The best scents that make you feel so confident about yourself were developed by best-selling perfumers who have been innovating and experimenting upon fragrances for a very long time. Who are the people in the perfume industry that you should be making a note of? Keep reading to find out.
Alberto Morillas
Alberto Morillas is the face behind the scent of the Calvin Klein CK One, which once raved among high school corridors. He is a self-taught Spanish perfumer and is a master perfumer at Swiss fragrance. His work at flavor firm Firmenich led to his popular creations including Giorgio Armani Acqua di Giò and Marc Jacobs Daisy. Morillas also has an independent line of scented candles called Mizensir and has created more than 7000 perfumes over the years.
Jean-Claude Ellena
French perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena has created fragrances for many notable perfume houses including Givaudan Paris, Haarmaan & Reimer, and The Different Company, which he founded. Ellena was also the exclusive in-house perfumer for Hermes, a major French luxury design house. He has authored several books including Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent and The Diary of a Nose: A Year in the Life of a Parfumeur.
Francis Kurkdjian
Francis Kurkdjian’s breakthrough perfume was the men’s fragrance Le Male that he created for Jean Paul Gaultier in 1995. Ever since Le Male became one of the best-selling fragrances across the world, Kurkdjian’s popularity has only risen further, as he went on to create over 40 different fragrances for companies like Elie Saab, Burberry, Nina Ricci, Narciso Rodriguez, and Elizabeth Arden. He is the co-founder of the niche luxury fragrance house, Maison Francis Kurkdjian. He founded this with his former EY partner Marc Chaya. In 2001, Kurkdjian was awarded the Prix Francois Coty for his lifetime achievements and contribution to the perfume industry.
Roja Dove
British perfumer Roja Dove’s creations can be seen in department stores across the world. He began his career as a perfumer in 1981 when he joined Guerlain, which is a popular French perfume house. He worked in Guerlain for 20 years, where he was called “Professeur de Parfum”, and became their Global Ambassador. This was the first time that a non-Guerlain family member received this position. Following this, he opened the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie in 2004. RDHP has since stocked fragrances from popular and loved brands like Tom Ford, Dior, and Grossmith. He has also extensively written on topics like perfume, celebrity fragrances, and ‘Smells of London’.
Jacques Polge
Jacques Polge is a French perfumer best known for being the Head Perfumer at Les Parfums Chanel between 1978 and 2005. Polge spent his childhood years near Avignon in France and credits his interest in perfumery to the scent of air surrounding Grasse. He says that it was “redolent with the smell of jasmine”. At Chanel, he has created several best-selling fragrances including Coco, Egoiste, Chance, and Bleu de Chanel.
Annie Buzantian
A master perfumer at Firmenich, Annie Buzantian was born in Constanta in Romania. She began her perfume journey by joining as a lab assistant at Universal Oil, which is currently Givaudan. After becoming a junior perfumer, in 1972 she joined Firmenich and trained with master perfumer Elie Roger. She herself became a master perfumer in 1998. She was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Society of Perfumers in 2003.
Conclusion
So that sums up the list of best-selling perfumers that you need to watch out for if you are or wish to be an ardent follower of the fragrance industry. These are all perfume experts who are loved by fragrance enthusiasts across the world.
References
https://web.archive.org/web/20100613081554/http://fragrance.org/interviews_detail.php?id=11