Now it’s Christine Nagel‘s turn to give us her olfactory take on the Hermes man, and she has done so in commendable fashion with H24, which I reviewed in a recent episode of Love At First Scent. Indeed, it’s been 15 years since that last happened, when the world was presented with none other than Terre D’Hermes (well done, Hermes, for taking your time and not rushing the next one). This allows us exceptional creative freedom and is absolutely unique.It’s not every day that we get a new ‘pillar’ from Hermes, and it certainly isn’t every day that the pillar is aimed at men. We forge our own convictions through exchange and dialogue. But here, we have no market research, no focus groups.
In other organisations, it is the marketing and strategy departments that call the shots. The house gives its artisans and artists an enormous amount of freedom they are the ones who set the tone. The house will never compromise on quality. I would cite absolute rigour in the selection of materials, the development of know-how, and attention to detail as the characteristics that nourish the uniqueness of the Hermès object. There is an Hermès signature in fragrance but also a signature common to all the house métiers. How do you personally define what an Hermès fragrance should be? The thing that has always motivated me is the drive to prove my ability and make the most of it, to be chosen for my creativity and my signature, and to put these things before everything else without any other considerations, especially those related to gender. The more people around me opposed it, the more I wanted it. I was absolutely and intimately convinced that this would be my profession. That said, if I had to establish a hierarchy of the size of obstacles I had to overcome, being a woman was undoubtedly the biggest.
Secondly, I was not an insider, I was not born in Grasse, the south of France, nor was I a perfumer’s daughter. At that time, being a woman and a perfumer were totally incompatible. Firstly, I belong to a generation where there were very few female perfumers. Yes, definitely, I had to overcome a lot of obstacles to become a perfumer. Photo: Hermès Did you have to break a lot of barriers to begin your journey as a perfumer? Why?
We spoke to Nagel on her work as female perfumer in a male-dominated industry and how she chooses to define her own scent creations.Ĭhristine Nagel, in-house perfumer at Hermès. She says, “To create this new Hermès signature fragrance, I had to open up other, less predictable paths, to move away from the conventional woodiness of men’s scents.”Ĭombining natural ingredients with innovative new molecules, the scent contains notes of clary sage, narcissus and rosewood, as well as sclarene, a futuristic molecule that is green and earthy with a metallic tang - to evoke the smell of hot irons used in a ready-to-wear workshop. In-house perfumer Christine Nagel may have initially created it for men, but that doesn’t mean a woman can’t wear it either.Īlthough the inspiration for the scent came from the work of artistic director of the Hermès men’s universe Veronique Nichanian, Nagel sought to move away from the usual tropes of a men’s scents. A good example is H24, the latest fragrance by luxury house Hermès. The world of fragrance was perhaps one of the first areas in beauty where gender rules and norms were challenged, through the creation of gender-neutral scents.
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