Fabrice Penot

In order to interview Fabrice Penot, co-creator of the New York-based alternative fragrance brand Le Labo, we went to call on him at the brand’s boutique in trendy Soho.

Fabrice, tell us a little bit about yourself and your brand, Le Labo. What made you want to do it?

My partner Eddie Roschi and I created Le Labo in 2006. We wanted to make something in our own image, something that felt right to us. This seemed the best way to achieve that, to get everything right. For instance, each of Le Labo’s creations is built around one ingredient that gives the fragrance its name. For that, we worked with the most prestigious designers, with complete creative and budgetary freedom. Plus, when you buy a bottle of Le Labo perfume, it is prepared right before your eyes.

What are your influences as a designer?

In terms of corporate identity, our role model is Apple in the 80s, when Steve Jobs was inventing stuff in his garage. Another influence is the magazine AdBusters, which organizes Buy Nothing Day every year. In the same spirit, on Black Friday, (the last Friday in November, the biggest shopping day in America) we organized Sell Nothing Day! At first, clients thought it was really weird, and then, once they understood that the point was to come just to take the time to smell the fragrances… We could also call it Slow Perfumery, like the Slow Food movement.
In terms of the fragrances themselves, I would say that we have our own tastes, which were shaped by our time with L’Oréal, and by the people we’ve worked with. One of the fragrance designers who’ve influenced us is Jean-Claude Ellena.

How can we recognize one of your fragrances? What are, in your opinion, their characteristic features?

Our concept is fragrances that are not too experimental: all of our fragrances have to be wearable. We’re looking for a good balance between innovative ideas and wearability.
In olfactory terms, we love using ingredients like Ambrox and Cetalox (*). All of our fragrances have musky-woody base-notes, but that signature wasn’t a conscience decision!

What other designer’s fragrance(s) do you wish you had created? And why?

The fragrance of the French laundry detergent ‘Genie sans bouillir’. Absolutely cleanliness!

How do you envisage the future of fragrances and fragrance brands?

I think that the market is going to have to make some choices. The major brands are going to keep making fragrances to suit consumers’ tastes, those are the brands we all come from. But then there are also the brands like Frédéric Malle and Serge Lutens that don’t worry about what customers want. We’re part of that school of thought. We want Le Labo to be a theme park for your nose, with fragrance as a souvenir.

Do you have a wish for the future?

Yes, we do! Everybody says that the Japanese don’t wear fragrance. In my opinion, that’s a self-fulfilling prophesy: because it’s what everybody thinks, nobody is willing to make the investment necessary to create a demand, and so the Japanese don’t wear fragrance. Well, we’re opening a Le Labo in Tokyo; so our wish is that we’ll turn out to be right not to have listened to anyone, and that we’ll get the Japanese to wear fragrance!

Anything else you’d like to add?

Don’t listen to other people, just yourself! It’s a very immature way to work, but you’re only young once. On the other hand, you can be immature as long as you want!

(*) molecules with musky, ambergris notes