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Serge Lutens

“If I found something tomorrow that made for a more intense break with my past than perfumery did, I wouldn’t have any trouble leaving perfumery behind”

Emerging briefly from his Moroccan exile, Serge Lutens came to Paris to present L’Eau Serge Lutens, a creation he himself describes as an ‘anti-perfume’. While he was here, the most secretive of fragrance designers confided in us in a long interview in which mystery and sincerity are intertwined.
Report by Nicolas Olczyk

To present your latest creation, you abandoned your traditional venue at Palais Royal for a totally different spot*. Why?
This place lets me tell a different story. The idea behind that is the concept of breaking with the past, changing. I like the sensation of breaking with the past. If you don’t want to turn into an antique, sometimes you have to change everything. In order to continue to exist… In order not to change anything, in a nutshell. The Palais Royal boutique was already a sort of break with the past: it allowed me to conceive of a very personal kind of perfumery. In 1982, my first fragrance, Nombre Noir, was also a dramatic break. Back then, everything was shiny and golden, from perfumes to hats to lipstick. And I showed up with this fragrance composed in black, in jet-black packaging. The second break was with Féminité du Bois, in 1992.

When Fleurs de Citronnier launched, you described it as an anti-colognialist fragrance. Now, you’ve invited us to the presentation of the anti-perfume. Isn’t the invitation a bit provocateur? By anti-perfume, do you mean anti earlier-Serge Lutens?
You know, when I presented ‘L’Eau Serge Lutens’ to my staff. I felt like Saint-Just** informing the aristocracy that they were about to lose their privileges. But I assure you, it’s not cologne. I hate cologne. Nor is it truly perfume. It’s more like an eau de cleanliness. Refined, nuanced... It’s like stepping out of the bath. Like putting on a freshly ironed shirt, or slipping into a bed with clean sheets…

A new sensation of freshness for your creative world, is that it?
It is not, strictly speaking, a fresh eau. You could say it’s like a breath of fresh air blowing through all these incestuous scents. This eau is… like sucking a Valda throat lozenge on Mont Blanc.

Yet at the same time, you recently relaunched the Muscs Koublaï Khan ‘export’ collection, a heady fragrance with dirty, animal tonalities. Isn’t that scent diametrically opposed to this eau, on the olfactory spectrum?
I like them both. Cleanliness and crass…luxurious crass. MKK does indeed have a very powerful opening. But what’s surprising is that babies love it.

When we meet up with you in Paris, you’re just passing through, since you don’t live here any more. Why did you choose to live in Morocco? What have they got that Paris hasn’t? Or is it the other way around, what haven’t they got?
My first trip to Morocco was in 1968. It was like love at first sight. Among other things, it was there that I found the hunk of cedar wood that would lead to Féminité du Bois. But why Morocco? I don’t know. Without really meaning to, I built a lot there; it’s turned into a sort of prison. All my books are there. But I could live with nothing, just the clothes on my back, in a hotel. I love luxury hotels. A room at the Ritz***? Why not? I rather like that idea.

Serge Lutens, aside from yourself, who would you have liked to be? Or maybe we should ask, who could you have been?
I honestly don’t know. The King of France maybe? Or rather the Queen of France, for the luxury. Catherine de Medicis perhaps? Or Joan of Arc. I could’ve been a saint, or a serious sinner.

Which fragrance by another designer do you wish you had designed? And inversely, in retrospect, which Serge Lutens fragrance wouldn’t you design today, or would you design differently?
I have no regrets. In the very beginning, I wasn’t interested in fragrance. I got into the world of beauty when I was 14, when I was put to work at a beauty parlor. Very soon, I wanted to cut the umbilical card and be financially independent. So to make ends meet, I worked for fashion magazines. But then I got fed up with being the gopher. I was taken on at Dior, where I designed their first make-up and image collection. For perfume, I gave up photography, which was a means of expression for me. But if I found something tomorrow that made for a more intense break with my past than perfumery did, I wouldn’t have any trouble switching again.

What is it like to have fans? When your fragrances attract, repel or annoy?
Being worshipped is scary, it’s dangerous… I think that in reality, my fragrances only attract a small number, like a core group of people.

Perhaps the adoration is because people think they know you through your fragrances. Some people own a lot of them, and it could be that by wearing them constantly, they wind up knowing them better than you, their designer, does?
Perhaps. But you know, not that long ago, I met someone, and I introduced myself. And he replied, ‘Oh, Serge Lutens, the famous photographer’. People get stuck.

Some fragrance blogs say that certain brands are trying to do now what Serge Lutens was doing 10 years ago. Although that’s a compliment for you, how do you feel about that criticism of the other brands?
Well, maybe it’s pretentious of me, but I don’t think of it as criticism. They’re right. Ten years, or maybe even more. Whatever the case, personally, I’m no longer interested in what I was doing 10 years ago.

For the past few years, you seem to be taking a certain liberty, going for whimsy and humor in the choice of names for your fragrances (Fille en Aiguilles (a pun in French, like a cross between “needle & thread” and “girl in high-heeled shoes), Louve (She-Wolf), Serge Noire (Black Serge), Nuit de Cellophane (Cellophane Night), Five O’Clock au Gingembre (5 o’clock with Ginger). Whereas more traditional brands seem to be naming fragrances the way you used to. Have ingredient-inspired names become a thing of the past for you?
Names have poetic value for me. Ambre Sultan, Cuir Mauresque (Moorish Leather) are names that announce the feel, not the ingredients. Even those names tell a story. Back when I launched Encens & Lavande (Frankincense & Lavender), the name sounded terribly modern. Louve told a story of white snow and bitter almond. Féminité du Bois is a mysterious name, which sounds like an African phrase. Yet today they all seem straightforward and obvious.

How do you feel about receiving a medal as a Commander of Arts and Letters****?
I was really surprised, because I don’t go out of my away to get awards. You know, I achieved international recognition back in 1968, when I was with Dior. But I think that sort of medal is also about maintaining France’s prestige internationally. Personally, power doesn’t interest me at all.

Is there a fragrance that you like to wear?
I hardly ever wear fragrance. Only when I go out on the town. Which is to say three times a year. And every time, I pour on a whole bottle of Cuir Mauresque.

Is there a smell that you particularly enjoy?
It depends on the moment. I like the smell of water when I’m hot, and the smell of my scarf when I’m cold. I remember the smell of petrol, which I used to like when I was little. I still like the grease smell in garages. And olives (there are some wonderful olive oils in Morocco), boxwood, bread... Fleeting olfactory instants.

Do you have a favorite flower?
That would probably be roses. But not for fragrance. For the name. For what they represent.

What about a favorite color? You seem to be drawn to black…
For me, black isn’t a color. It’s a… thing. I don’t know why I never wear anything but black. But the first time I truly accepted myself for what I was, that’s the shade I was wearing. I remember when I was little, and they bought me a pair of black shoes. I was really proud of them, because of their color. But beyond the personal solitude that black procures for me, I do like other colors. I like clerical colors, like purple and crimson. Mazarin, Richelieu… I could have made poison for Catherine de Medicis too.
Is there an artist whose work fascinates you, an artist you would have liked to meet?
I don’t actually like to meet the people whose work I adore. But I would have loved to create Les Demoiselles d’Avignon*****.

Serge Lutens, what is your own personal luxury?
For me, luxury is the idea of immediacy, of obligation. So I would say reading. Another one of my luxuries: cat naps. I sleep for 10 minutes, and when I wake up, I have a new vision of things. I’m clean…

(*)15 Vergennes Square (Paris) was designed by the architect Mallet-Stevens for the glass-maker Louis Barillet
(**) a politician from the time of the French Revolution who was nicknamed ‘the archangel of the Terror’
(***) From 1935 to her death in 1971, Gabrielle Chanel had ‘her room’ at the Ritz.
(****) In 2007, the Minister of Culture hailed the ‘tremendous talent of a true aesthete, a master craftsman of the senses, a creator of extraordinary images, who has made beauty a life’s quest, and who never ceases to inspire the current artistic scene’.
(*****) The 1907 Picasso painting that is generally thought of as the first Cubist painting.