When I first ask Jean Claude Ellena whether he judges people on their scent, he demurs in that charming French way. “No, no, no,” he insists. Then he pauses. “In fact, it’s not true what I say,” he chuckles. At an event not long ago, he was speaking about fragrance alongside a well-respected sommelier who was discussing wine. Unfortunately, said sommelier had drenched himself in Hugo Boss. “I say to myself, oh shit, he stinks, this fellow,” laughs Ellena. “It’s not very sensual, it’s not a very sophisticated smell. Maybe he knows a lot about wine, but about perfume, he has to learn a little bit more.”
What Ellena doesn’t know about fragrances isn’t worth knowing. The 62-year-old Frenchman is known as the Frank Gehry of the fragrance world, having created sparkling, simple but sophisticated bestsellers throughout his prolific career, such as Van Cleef & Arpels First, Bulgari Eau Parfumée and Sisley Eau de Campagne.
And since becoming exclusive in-house perfumer for Hermès in 2004, he’s created hit after hit for the luxury goods house. Arguably the most successful has been Terre d’Hermès. The sexy, spicy eau de toilette smells like a tall, brooding Frenchman in a chic suit who could fix a plough as easily as an underperforming blue-chip company. It became an instant classic when it was released in 2006, and proved so successful that last year the marketing folk came back and asked for another just like it — only better. “I said I don’t want to come out with what I call extreme, intense, super Terre d’Hermès, because I don’t like this approach,” says Ellena.
Instead he wanted to ‘rewrite’ the story of Terre d’Hermès. The result is Terre d’Hermès Pure Perfume. While it echoes its cousin, it’s a different fragrance. “Sometimes you write a story and two years later you look at what you have written and you say maybe I can say more about that, or this part in the book is not so interesting,” he says. “So you talk about what is more essential.”
The key attribute for a perfumer is not a highly sensitive nose, but a finely tuned memory, as a large part of the training lies in memorising millions of scent molecules. Ellena works alone in his glassy atrium of a lab in Cabris, near Grasse, France, on up to 10 different products at once. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and he refers to himself as “un voleur d’odour” — a scent thief. The most unlikely places provide creative fodder — even the Paris underground. “If I find something good in the metro, I will take from the metro,” he says. “It’s not the place, it’s the idea you get.”
Published in GQ Australia June 2009
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