Many times, when I criticize contemporary launches, I receive usually 2 types of so-called arguments, expressed by people who share a different vision: personal taste and the marketing reason.

When I say "the last perfumes produced by l'Oréal team are unworthy to be sniffed" the common answer is "but they know what makes them rich". This is a very wrong answer and should never be said in public because it demonstrates you didn't go to the good college, where basics of aesthetics should be taught. Shakespeare wrote for an audience in a time when the success of a play was important for the daily living. But this has little to do with the Beauty of texts and the Greateness of meaning (form + content + meaning + intention). Bach and Mozart were commissioned for some of their works. They were paid and had a contract. Titian or Veronese were not lonely painters dreaming of Beauty. They had big ateliers that performed Art on an industrial scale. Did you see the huge Veronese painting in Louvre, in front of Mona Lisa and behind the crowd? Did you see the Rubens room in Le Louvre?  

This contemporary misunderstanding comes from a very old problem - how to define, recognize, identify, frame the Beauty? - and there is no answer to that. There is no set of rules that could be translated in a software that would set apart a beautiful drawing or a beautiful perfume.

Beauty and meaning are fundamental in any creation - from a painting to perfume or a movie, artistic expression that share many characteristics and functions. We can describe or explain beauty but cannot define it in exact words. It is only the artist who is able to define Beauty and to give new definitions to it.

First comes an idea arising from a desire to make an "object" of "utility" or "luxury" possessing some claims to beauty. In our case, utility stands for a specific function / purpose (from a perfume for a washing powder to the function of a "money maker" for shareholders). Luxury stands for rare, unique, precious, special but also reflects the Latin etymology - luxury is enlightenment, and revelation, beyond the sparkle of money. In our world the latest perfume produced by L'Oréal (let's say Armani) and the latest cleaning product from Ajax have the same value - their quest for beauty is an accessory to their utility or function and sometime it is an accident. A perfume from Dolce & Gabanna might be pretty, pleasant but its beauty is an accident, not an intention, nor a quest. It's like having a plastic container for your roses and a Gallé vase. One does something more. The perfumes of Serge Lutens perform all these basic notions, from the original idea to the permanent quest of beauty. Their "luxury" translates a form of "enlightenment". They open the appetite for knowledge and the desire to explore the senses. The "juice" of a l'Oréal perfume is just an accessory to a label inside bottle but doesn't make you richer as human nor hungrier for beauty. A work of art is fertile and inspiring while pure "utility" is not. When you smell the latest O d'Azur by Lancôme (a reproduction of a shampoo scent combined with a deodorant) you do not feel the desire to smell more from Lancôme, nor to explore other scents. Serge Lutens is the opposite and the Beauty he captured is not the uniqueness of a particular perfume but the way it acts upon your soul, no matter if you buy it or not.

The idea, the use, the environment, all this will lead the perfumer to a determination of the general "olfactory form". Practical considerations (like production, price) will lead also to a choice of materials. But with all these factors entering into the problem we may achieve nothing more than a merely adequate expression of the idea. To give Beauty we must seek a refinement of the construction through an adjustment of the relative proportions of the parts to each other and to the whole. Then comes the enrichment on the basis of all that has preceded and the finishing touch who contributes to the beauty of the whole.

That's only the first step and it refers just to aesthetic elements and not yet to meaning. This formula is useless and means nothing until it becomes a habit through practice. Perfumes produced by L'Oréal or Procter & Gamble are sterile because those who work on them have not the habit to see, breathe, even recognize beauty, and worse, they repeat processes and theories that are exhausted. These points furnish only a clew in the development of a product because there are many crossroads between the idea and a beautiful expression. Mere adequacy is not beauty. Our world is abundantly endowed with practical sense leading to remarkable inventions. To pursue an idea through the practical phase alone may lead to a "machine", to the highest degree of efficiency. Complete efficiency may excite our admiration, but beauty springs from an impulse that craves more than efficient service. But adequate service is not incompatible with beauty and here we have some examples of very important olfactory creations like the first Nivea cream.

"The assumption that art is luxury and inaccessible is the logical argument of an age that looks upon art as something apart from daily life, to be donned on occasions like a Sunday coat." This idea, already discussed at the end of XIXth century is more contemporary than ever because, after a century of modern art and democracy, the elite has replaced the old idols with newer ones. In Paris, one of the few places on earth where things are both advanced and very old fashioned, this is still the credo in the XXIth century. The question "can perfume be an art?" can be asked in a conservative academic milieu only because ART today is still considered something like a Sunday coat. This vision of Art is wrapped with incomprehensible texts much like the use of Latin in catholic churches centuries ago.

There was a time when Art was everyday life - people went to lavishly painted churches while the divine music was accompanying their prayers. They did not know what Art is because this notion was not yet framed, also many were illiterate. Few of them were aware of what we visit today in Italy or France and call Art. The assumption today that fragrance is less than an Art because it is something of daily use, is the ridicule argument of those who did not study art, nor culture. It is not the perfume that has to be "demonstrated" but people who have to be taught, like those centuries ago listening the Bible in Latin with a french accent. Reading French newspapers I notice that we still live in the XIXth century - the orchestra became an i-Pod, the content is the same.

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