Many consider Dominique Ropion the best perfumer of his generation. It’s easy to see why, given how many of his creations have become modern classics: Lancôme’s La Vie Est Belle, Givenchy’s Ysatis, Thierry Mugler’s Alien, and, perhaps most well-known, Portrait of a Lady for my father, Frédéric Malle. That perfume, with its indulgent rose and deep tones of amber and incense, is not only the scent I grew up associating with my mother, but also the one that’s come to define my father’s work with Ropion. “I wouldn’t have developed most of the perfumes I’m proud of if it weren’t for Dominique,” he says. “His style is the best of two extremes. While capable of the boldest strokes, he can also focus on the tiniest of details, sometimes spending days adjusting the smallest dose of a raw material to perfect his composition. He could balance an elephant with a feather.”
Ropion’s latest, Miu Miu’s Miutine, blends a citrussy, floral heart with a base of oakmoss and patchouli, and a background of fruit and brown sugar. “The vibrancy and regressive aspect of wild strawberry bring a lively and cheerful dimension to the scent, evoking a sense of joy and spontaneity,” says Ropion. It captures the brand’s youthful, confident woman, with Emma Corrin starring in the campaign. To celebrate its release, I asked Ropion about the scents he loves, the ones he hates, and those that have never left his side.
Is there something that draws all of your fragrances together?
What guides me, more than anything, is aesthetics. Emotions obviously always end up coming into play, but I’m mostly driven by searching for style, finding formulas, and working them.
What’s the first scent you remember?
My mom and grandmother always wore classic Eau de Cologne [the formula from Cologne, Germany, composed mainly of citrus], so I was very affected by it and still love it today. Also, like every child, I remember the smell of candy, vanilla, and chocolate. This one might not be the very first, but I really remember the smell of toys. And the odors of Paris, too. It’s far less poetic, but I find the first whiff when you enter the metro, from the cleaning products to the environment’s metallic notes, quite particular and very interesting. It’s a shocking olfactory experience.
Is there an aroma that’s your Proust Madeleine?
I’d say the Eau de Cologne again. Its hesperidic [citrus] notes and rosemary transport me to the past.
Is there a scent from nature that you’d like to recreate?
That’s a great question. There isn’t just one. I’ve often worked on recreating natural scents, like flowers, which are very interesting because they’re so complex. Analyzing roses, jasmine, or tuberose, you realize they’re made up of many very different accords, so their formulas end up being very complicated. That being said, all smells from nature are interesting to me. I’ve been drawn to reproducing animal smells, like musk and castoreum, or the notes in fruit, from strawberries to apples to cherries. And sometimes things from nature aren’t primary materials—they can be atmospheres, like a maritime environment, or a seaside. Human skin is fascinating, too.
When you travel, is there a scent that captivates you?
When you arrive in Dubai or Riyadh, or cities like that, there’s this wonderful and surprising scent floating in airports, shaped by what people are wearing, like the famous oud and the accords around it, such as notes of rose. There’s also India and Sri Lanka, and the spices smelled when crossing their cities. In Kannauj, the equivalent of Grasse of India, the air carries the distillation of attar.
Is there an existing perfume that you’d like to recreate?
Recreate, no—anything can be recreated. Copying is the more pertinent word. When a perfume is good, we study it to understand how it functions. It’s rare for a completely new perfume to come out.
Do you have a favorite food scent?
I like the smells of things like paella, couscous, and choucroute. They aren’t particularly refined, but they’re all quite distinct and striking. I also love the smell of caviar, though it’s less potent.
How about a food scent you can’t bear?
Butter. And if you walk by piles of trash in New York in August, it’s awful.
What fragrance do you like that most people don’t?
I love cumin, but many people don’t because it kind of smells like sweat. But that doesn’t bother me very much.
Is there a scent that made you want to become a perfumer?
Loving smells made me want to be a perfumer. You have to love them before even loving their compositions. It’s kind of like a poet needs to love the flavor of words, words as they are, on their own, before using them in sentences.
Do you ever dream of smells?
No, I don’t think so. Well, first of all, I rarely remember my dreams—I more often remember my nightmares. It’s very difficult to dream of smells, because you can’t depict what they look like. When you close your eyes, you may see a rose or imagine a melody, but the brain doesn’t allow you to actually see the smell itself. I may dream of the concept of one, but no, not the smell itself.
What scents have you recently been inspired by?
These questions are hard! Everything inspires me. I guess I’ve liked fruit and woody, spiced smells like oud, but also the complete opposite, like fresh and green scents. But what really interests me is building perfumes.
How do you feel about the intense interest in fragrances today, with TikTok and PerfumeTok?
I mean, I’m happy. It’s better than the opposite. Perfume is so important for human beings, you can’t not be interested in it. Perhaps we’re missing a strong perfume culture. We aren’t taught about it like we are music or art in school, so you really just have to be impressed by it on your own. People aren’t dumb—they know how to recognize and love and buy a very good perfume, without deeply knowing about the industry.
Jeanne Malle is a Junior Editor at AIR MAIL
