But the real memory that was very important for me is, I was at boarding school, playing a lot of sports, as one does. And I must have been about 12, and was still covered in Eau Sauvage. You know when you run and sweat? That sort of smell of, I suppose, myself and the perfume, it was something that I realized then was addictive. And then when I was trying to desperately become a playboy -I was 15 – my mother had some products sent from the States to study, and one of them was Halston Z14. [...] I thought, Wow, this is damned good. I used that stuff for years. First of all, I was probably the only one is Paris who owned it at the time, and I thought I was so goddamn special wearing it. It was the first overdosed use of Iso E Super.

— Frédéric Malle, quoted in Frédéric Malle on the Art of Seduction at W Magazine.

Perfumes, like all works of art, are more powerful when they’re simple. There’s an indescribable energy and sense of purity that sets apart great works of art from the more common ones. It’s hard to make these very streamlined fragrances, but they’re worth the effort. That’s one of the differences between a classic and flavor of the moment.

— Frédéric Malle, on his motto “Eliminate all that is superfluous or merely decorative.” Read more at New To NM: Frédéric Malle and his unconventional take on fragrance.