Jean-Claude Ellena Quotes

My visitors say they noticed perfumes from different companies in my fridge, and ask what I need these for. I explain that they are mainly there as historical benchmarks of quality, below which I must not and would not want to fall.

As a person, I take pleasure in receiving and sharing. As a perfumer, I like showing and convincing…. I’m quite simply following the trajectory of an artist, someone who seeks and, sometimes, finds.

Oddly, though, lists are reassuring. We become aware of this if we scrupulously follow a recipe, which is essentially a list of ingredients and actions; but if we give this ‘list’ too much importance, we leave no room for the imagination.

Beautiful and minimalist, the traditional Japanese art of ikebana – arranging bouquets of cut flowers and leaves using very few elements – ideally corresponded to a form of expression I could transpose in a perfume. The smell of a rose early in the morning, damp, sprinkled with dew, delicate and light.