Interview with Frédéric Malle: A Timeless Magic in Collaboration with Acne Studios

In the midst of the Fuorisalone frenzy in Milan, amidst the elegant streets of the Montenapoleone district, I found myself in an oasis of calm, a fusion of different yet similar creativities. Entering the boutique, amidst the setup of new shelves, filled with the new fragrance, my mind traveled across the European continent to Sweden and France, where an extraordinary encounter took place: Frédéric Malle, the iconic pioneer of perfumery, and Jonny Johansson, the audacious mind behind Acne Studios, joined forces in a creation that stirred the hearts of fashion and fragrance enthusiasts worldwide.

I sniffed the iconic-designed bottle cap, transcending the boundaries of mere collaboration, immersing myself in an atmosphere that captures the aesthetic, innovation, and artistic depth of two extraordinary minds.

Acne Studios par Frédéric Malle is much more than a new fragrance: it’s a celebration of roots, an ode to limitless creativity, and a revolution embracing past and future. Interviewing Monsieur Malle offered me a glimpse into his world: I learned the secrets behind this unique collaboration, the inspirations that brought to life an olfactory masterpiece, and the shared vision of timeless aesthetics. With the elegance of a bygone era and the modernity of an avant-garde vision, Monsieur Malle guides us through his creative process, offering an intimate view of the soul of Acne Studios par Frédéric Malle, in a journey through scent, fashion, and art, where every detail pays tribute to the importance of innovation.

You are quite a legend in the perfumery field. How would you describe your journey so far?

Perfumes have always been part of my life because, although I wasn’t taught anything about it by any member of my family, I was always told that it was important and that creation and art, in general, were not something to compromise with. There was this very pure way of approaching perfume that I was told about. My mother was in the perfume business, you know, so I suppose that, as a child, I noticed perfume in a way that other children didn’t, and that made a difference.

When I started growing up, I understood the role of perfumery. In the back of my mind, I always had this idea that maybe perfumery could be part of my life, but on the other hand, because it was my mother’s business, one, I was not invited, two, it felt a little bit like threading on her territory, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do that. The person that I was always influenced by, even aesthetically, was the father of a friend of mine and an art director of Chanel. This person, whom I knew quite well, and whose work I admired, and whom I talked to quite a lot, was very important for me and my artistic formation.

One day, I was minding my own business in advertising, although I was a bit bored with it, when someone who was running the biggest lab in the industry asked me to join and become his assistant. To me, who wanted to become an art director, it was one way to complete my learning. I’d been a photographer, I’d studied art history, and I was working in advertising, so I knew about communication marketing, and I thought it could be a more complete education.

I entered perfumery almost as a curiosity and as a provisional job – I thought, “Two or three years and I’ll quit and maybe go back to more visual things while being able to link the two together”. I loved it since day one, and I became very close to perfumers: I developed a visceral interest in this field and I really had fun.

That’s how I started. I worked there in the lab for a while, then I became a consultant for a small brand of an English friend of mine. There I realized that the perfumers were bored, that they kept on complaining because they were dealing with people who didn’t know perfumery, who were interested in numbers and were not giving them money, and who were treating perfume as a cheap commodity.

In the other part of my life, the evening one, when I saw people from the movies, artists, and so on, I realized that no one wore perfumes anymore because they thought that good perfumes were from the past, and people didn’t want to smell like their parents, they wanted to be contemporary and yet they didn’t want that junk that was coming out at the time.

So, when I created Editions de Parfums, my first idea was to create a link between the vast perfumers and the small artistic public. As I was doing it, I realized that it was very unjust and stupid not to name perfumers because these people were ghostwriters, so I thought that it would be a good idea to talk about them and make them sign their perfume. As we were going along, all those ideas came up gradually: that’s how Editions de Parfums was born.

I think my role is so similar to that of a publisher; I have many friends in the publishing business, and they all live for their authors, they sometimes rewrite entire chapters, sometimes they do nothing, and they basically adapt their roles to the need of each writer so that they come out with the best book possible. This is very similar to what I do – I called my brand Editions de Parfums to show that that’s how we work.

This was 25 years ago. I worked on it quite fast because I was doing things on my own – in fact when you work on your own you go fast. I designed the bottle, whose design was inspired by books, and I wanted packaging that you could see from far away, so I chose that combination of colors [red and black], inspired by Calder and Le Corbusier, and then we launched. Over these 25 years, we’ve grown, we’ve launched everywhere, but more than anything, we have worked in the freest way possible.

How did you and Johnny Johansson from Acne Studios cross paths and what brought you two to the idea of creating a fragrance together?

Once again, I wanted to break a routine.

There are designers that I admire and sometimes invite to work with me. For example, I invited Dries Van Noten, Alber Elbaz, and others. At the same time, there are not so many fashion brands that I find relevant and part of my world. However, I was in Stockholm, once, in the Acne Studios store, and I knew Acne Studios because my sister was wearing a lot of their clothes, and my daughter and my wife did, as well; so, there in the store, I realized that the brand felt so familiar and so in line with what I like, with their idea of having a regular approach to fashion, rooted in a certain tradition, while creating quite impactful and innovative things, and quite timeless as a result. That’s why I thought that could have been the next brand that I could invite.

I think fashion today is a bit lost – brands either go very commercial, which is fine, as long as it’s not pretentious, or they make things that are not wearable or not very respectful of women. In other words, fashion wants to be contemporary art while going outside of “clothes”. I think Acne Studios is one of the very rare brands today that hides a very good talent in it, so I felt very close to what they were doing. I wrote Jonny a letter saying what I thought of his brand, and I think I chose the right words; plus, he was already using my perfumes and very aware of what we were doing, so we joined forces. We met in Paris and that’s it, the rest is history.

The rest is perfume.

This fragrance is the epitome of a meeting between fashion, perfumery, and art – in other words, it’s an expression of free creativity. Where do you seek creativity in your everyday life, to translate it, then, also into your work?

I always relate things to one another.

If you design a piece of silverware, whether you want it or not, you’re influenced by your time; I think specific vibes are going around in each era, and everyone has the same ideas at the same time – there is something in the air that connects elements; if you step back and have the necessary sensitivity, you can understand how to connect things. From my own sensitivity, from my past in art history, and from my work in perfumery, I know how to connect a visual world or a creative philosophy to perfume, and I know how to make a perfume and rationalize this around someone’s philosophy. So, I just observed and thought about Jonny’s work, about what animates him, I had perfumers make illustrations of that, and Suzy Le Halley had two versions of it, and one of them won.

Speaking of Suzy, “A fragrance should have the smell of the message that it wants to convey,” she said. What message did you want to convey with this fragrance and how did you choose the ingredients and the process behind it?

There’s no such message as “be happy” or anything like that: perfumery is not an intellectual thing. Perfumery is like music, you don’t have a straight message. Nevertheless, it has to express a feeling, and I think that’s what Suzy means by message.

I wanted timelessness, I wanted comfort, I wanted something very classical yet irreverent, so, to do that, I chose a very classical structure that is often copied by people that work in soap and detergents. I thought that the way that they formulate fabric softeners was interesting. Everybody looks down on this because people are very conventional, but you know, the ingredients that they use in those products feel so reassuring because they are part of our lives. Some of those products are quite interesting in a cheap but cool way; so, I went back to classical architecture reinterpreted by Suzy in a modern way, which means that instead of using old-fashioned ingredients, we used the equivalent modern ingredients like musk, sandalwood, and also a few flowers, but not overdoing it so it wouldn’t be dirty, and we also put aldehydes, mostly, that are coming from soap and detergents. It was a bit like Jonny working on a jacket that had a very straight cut, but then changing the proportions a bit and using a color which is not what you’d expect from that cut. I could find a parallel in the way he works, in the spirits, in the inspiration, and in the way he treats this inspiration, and that’s how it worked.

What do the ingredients of this fragrance remind you of?

To me they are ingredients but they are also architecture. The ingredients feel very reassuring and comfortable, a little bit like the Acne things, that are very comfortable to wear and warm. So, you have a sort of fluffiness in what we have chosen for the perfume.

It’s how you put ingredients together that really makes a difference.

Between past, present, and future where would place this fragrance?

I think it’s very present. As for the future, I don’t know what it is like: I hope that it will belong to the future as well and that in 10 years, it will still be of that time. I don’t think it’s from the past, although the idea and the architecture of it are coming from the past.

This fragrance is the epitome of a meeting between fashion, perfumery, and art – in other words, it’s an expression of free creativity. Where do you seek creativity in your everyday life, to translate it, then, also into your work?

I think creativity you have it or you don’t.

I think all creative people are also curious people; there’s a sort of inevitability in that, too, because you want to be creative with all yourself, and it’s like someone who cannot stop talking: creativity is something in you that can’t stop going, and usually, creativity leads to creativity, it’s a spiral. So, I don’t choose to be creative, I enjoy creation, and working in a creative business, and because I’ve been working with creative people and in a way been quite successful at creating new perfumes, it puts me in a very positive spiral.

Creativity is expected from me but it’s also natural for me: I don’t think otherwise, I don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “Let’s be creative today”, I wake up in the morning hoping that the weather is nice.

How does the challenge of always reinventing yourself and finding new ways of expression through fragrances keep you motivated?

When you work with people like Jonny or the other designers I’ve worked with, you’re challenged to work with their logic, which is an uncomfortable exercise but also generous because you’ve offered to work for them.

As I was saying before, creativity is a rhythm – you have to make a few steps through the process of making a product, you don’t compromise, and you make choices. I think what many people don’t understand is that creativity is not one big brush stroke: a big strike of genius comes from many little steps, and with each step, you have to make a decision, which is why it can be so exhausting. The sum of all of that creates a product, a work of art, which can be good or bad, but often is the sum of all the energies and all the decisions you have made, so it can be quite powerful. From a romantic point of view, it’s tedious work, it’s hard work.

Fragrances are a way to connect people with others, themselves and their memories/emotions. Has anyone ever surprised you by telling the story of how a fragrance moved them?

What I like, actually, is that everyone experiences perfumes quite differently. Often, I hear they mark a moment in their life.

I’ve recently talked with an artist-friend of mine who discovered that her boyfriend was wearing the same perfume as hers: they had this violent affair but now it’s finished, so she’s threatening to change perfume! She’s a big star, but I won’t say who she is… [laughs]

What dreams and hopes do you have for your legacy?

I just hope that we’re helping people understand that perfumes can be an artistic manifestation and can be also of their time. Before we started Editions de Perfume, I think people thought that good perfumes were old – I hope that I have proven that good perfumes can really be contemporary. If I’ve done that, it’s already something because it means that I’ve been the one who’s convinced people that perfumes can be of their generation.

What was, in your career, your biggest act of rebellion?

There have been many. When I used to work for the lab I mentioned before, I made many acts of rebellion. The man who was running this lab was a big star in his business: I used to rebel against him, and we had a huge fight, we turned red like orange juice, and I was a kid when this happened, saying “No, you are wrong and I am right” to a 60 years old man running a huge company. However, I suppose my biggest act of rebellion was opening Editions de Perfume when everybody was striving to please Sephora.

To be honest, I don’t really rebel, it’s not my thing: I speak my mind and I do what I think. I think what I do and I do what I think. What you see is what you get, I work and act according to my conditions.

What does it mean for you to feel comfortable in your own skin?

I’m comfortable in my own skin because I have very strong values and I stick to those values every day. I wouldn’t be comfortable in my own skin if I didn’t stick to those values.

Another thing that makes me more than comfortable, I’d say exhilarating, is that I work with people who are friends, who are truly creative, and we have a lot of fun, respect, and admiration for one another. To be part of that gives me a certain high every day.

Through your work, what was the latest thing you discovered about yourself?

That I’m sensitive to jet lag! [laughs]

One thing that is not really a discovery, but rather a conviction, is that even if you’re the one to make decisions, even if you’re good at what you’re doing, you’re no one without others. Without other perfumers, I wouldn’t be here in front of you now, despite the beauty of the socks I’m wearing! It’s a nice shade of green, isn’t it?

Thanks to Estée Lauder Company.