Five perfumers, one from each of the major fragrance and flavor companies, were named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres last week by the French Minister of Culture. The perfumers were Daniela Andrier of Givaudan, Françoise Caron of Takasago, Olivier Cresp of Firmenich, Maurice Roucel of Symrise and Dominique Ropion of IFF.
(via culturecommunication.gouv.fr)
Denyse of the Grain de Musc blog attended the event; you can read her report here.
Serge Lutens was named Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres back in 2007.
Nice of them to catch up a bit! Seems like perfumers would have been honored this way more often, in France, especially.
We don’t even have a minister of culture, so we can hardly complain 😉
What a talented group. Among them, they have created some of the most impressive and best-selling contemporary fragrances. Frangrances that literally changed our lives.
Nice to see they are honored. At least the French get it.
Indeed, where else do perfumers get honoured in this way?
Really, nearly nowhere but in perfumer organizations / societies. It’s especially funny to me how little the various Fifi awards bother to honor with the perfumers…they’re very nearly besides the point.
Wouldn’t you love to have mingled and sniffed your way through that reception?
Actually, few people wore perfume… I guess it would be like taking work home from the office!
I find it hard to believe and how would you even get a hold of that data? Don’t believe that for a second. I think the best and brightest were juiced up.
She was there.
Not I, but I’m sure many people would!
I seriously doubt this group wears fragrance. Especially some of the ones they’ve created.
How disappointing. It sends the message that fragrance is not for serious matters.
Dilana, I don’t think they see it that way at all. They care very much about perfume: it’s their life.
Perfumers might test on skin things they’re working on. But they wouldn’t necessarily want to wear their works-in-progress when they’re mingling with colleagues who are also competitors.
Also, most move on once they’re done with a product. They’re very happy to smell it on someone else, but they wouldn’t go around wearing it (especially since it would seem they were tooting their own horn).
But mostly, they’re immersed in fragrance all day. Some do wear scents when they go out, but many just need a break, otherwise they’ll still feel they’re working!
I agree.
You don’t really expect that room to reek of Angel, Alien, Aqud di Gio, Iris Silver Mist and other heavy hitters, do you?
Bravo to all of these noses. It’s about time!