Two journalists and fragrance specialists, Sabine Chabbert, also a consultant for the Fragrance Foundation France, and Laurence Férat, who has been writing about perfumes for several years, notably in French newspaper Le Figaro, have recently published Rare Perfumes [1], a book entirely dedicated to alternative perfumery, whose distribution is often limited to a few outlets.
Since the 1980’s, indeed, perfume lovers have discovered an alternative perfumery, the one of enthusiastic ‘parfumeurs-créateurs’ all driven by an intuition and a unique creativity, willing to control everything from distribution to the purchase of the raw materials and from the choice of their bottles to the choice of their boutiques. Over the past five years the trend has accelerated with the advent of many new brands, but also an increasing number of specialized outlets.
Rare Perfumes presents the great figures of this new world of perfume. From daring names such as ‘État libre d’Orange’ to the creative originality of ‘Comme des Garçons’, more than 40 approaches constituting of a new school are laid down in details.
“Rare Perfumes underlines a major breakthrough for our profession: the arrival for more than 20 years of several brands having all the desire to create differently. This other perfumery shakes up a market dominated by big international groups and it is the best thing that could ever happen to the perfume industry!” commented Patricia de Nicolaï Chairwoman of the Osmothèque and also a parfumeur-créateur and one of the leading personalities of this new wave.
