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Clara Molloy

Having worked previously in the sectors of both luxury and publishing, Clara Molloy has now launched a new alternative fragrance company, Memo.

Clara, tell us a little bit about yourself, and about your company, Memo. Why did you decide to create your own brand?

‘Memo’ comes from memory, I like the idea of a fragrance having a direct link to the most sensitive part of our brains. The ideas of travel, movement, looking back… are all part of the brand’s concept. The expression, ‘The journey is the destination’ sums up the spirit of Memo, maker of initiatory fragrances.

What influences you as a designer?

My travels have obviously influenced the creation of Memo fragrances: each of them (Lalibela, Siwa, Inle, Sundance) bears the name of a destination I have visited (N.B.: in Ethiopia, Egypt, Burma and the USA, respectively). But I also have a particular taste for poetry, and to a certain extent for art that flirts with words, from Henri Michaux to Cy Twombly. Words can be ingredients. A fragrance starts out as a story before it turns into an ingredient, an accord.

How can we recognize one of your fragrances? What are, in your opinion, their distinguishing characteristics?

What I look for in a fragrance is to recreate an atmosphere or an emotion. I appreciate fragility, the cracks, charcoal sketches… what isn’t completely set in stone, but is suggested or implied – a certain finesse and subtlety in dealing with emotions. Semi-colons, ellipses… It’s true both in my life and in my fragrances.

Do you think that being a woman influences the way you create… and if so, in what way?

Not really. I think it’s quite difficult to assign a gender to fragrances, characters, behaviors… It’s a very cultural thing. When you’re very sensitive, even the weather can influence you. Putting on a fragrance is an infinitely precious, delicate and intimate gesture that implies taking one’s time, letting oneself go, being gentle and languorous. Which can all be considered masculine too…

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

Several perfumes have left their mark in my life, but I wouldn’t say I wish I had created them… rather that I’m glad they exist as they are. My first fragrance was Guy Laroche’s Fidji (a travel destination too, is that really a coincidence?). Since then I’ve worn Yves Saint Laurent’s Rive Gauche, Guerlain’s Mitsouko, Bulgari’s Eau Parfumée au thé Vert and Serge Lutens’ Feminité du Bois. Each of them symbolizes a chapter in my life’s story. Wearing a fragrance is like taking on a role.

How do you envisage the future for fragrances? Do you have any hopes for the future?

There is no artistic creation without freedom, so my wish is for all fragrance designers to focus on the esthetic quest. In “22 perfumers, a creative process,” the book we published, bottle designer Serge Mansau says something very true in the preface, “When you carry beauty in your heart, it has to flow into everything you undertake.” For myself, I wish to run into moments of Beauty… and to know how to recreate them in a bottle…