Quality
Profile in Style
Frédéric Malle Creating fragrances through collaboration and strict attention to detail, the perfumer is building a brand as layered and intriguing as his own personal influences. BY KARI MOLVAR
Villa Noailles, Hyères. It’s a paradox that I can love 18th-century Versailles but that I’m also a devotee of minimalist things like this house.
Le Château de Groussay. The house was redesigned by my wife’s great-uncle, Carlos de Beistegui. Every detail was worked, but it made me realize beautiful architecture can be fun.
My New York apartment. I learned how to create unexpected accord with contrasting objects by observing the way Jacques Grange decorated my mother’s house when I was a child.
ëëITíS ABOUT FRIENDSHIPS and sharing taste,íí FrÈdÈric Malle says of his fragrance house,
Editions de Parfums, for which he has been commissioning top noses and artists to translate ideas and interests into scents for the last 14 years. Modeling his business on a publishing imprint, he refers to himself as an ëëeditor of perfumes.íí His latest endeavor ó building one-off boutiques around the world ó is similarly collaborative. ëëIím calling on the best architects and designers in various cities to create stores according to their whims and my desire.íí First up was the New York location at 94 Greenwich Avenue with the architect Steven Holl, to be followed in the spring by the transformation of a London landmark building in Mayfair. The origins of this new project, and indeed Malleís entire perspective on perfumery, can be traced to growing up in Paris, where he was raised on good design and great fragrances. Malleís grandfather founded Parfums Christian Dior, and his childhood apartment once belonged to Jean-Paul Guerlain (ëëThe walls smelled of Vol de Nuit,íí he says). But while he comes from the Old World, his tastes also run modern and eclectic ó finding inspiration in everything from Donald Juddís Minimalist installations in Marfa to a boxy Braun hair dryer from his youth. ëëBecause of the way they looked,î Malle says, ëëthese objects made me dream.íí
106
T: The New York Times Style Magazine
My grandfather Serge Heftler (right) with Christian Dior. He had quite a presence. He believed that being a perfumer is a serious business.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: TINA BARNEY; THÉRÈSE BONNEY/COLLECTION JEAN-LOUIS COHEN, PARIS; FRÉDÉRIC MALLE; COURTESY OF FRÉDÉRIC MALLE; FRÉDÉRIC MALLE
At home in Paris, 2003. I take my kids everywhere. They’re like, ‘‘not another museum!’’ They have been to every single gallery and Russian castle you can imagine.