Premium Beauty News - Could you share the vision and mission behind this new Atelier?
Lucas Nanini - The Atelier is The Estée Lauder Companies’ new global fragrance innovation accelerator, a space designed to foster close collaboration with fragrance houses, ingredient suppliers, and our manufacturing network.
Based in Paris, the historic and future epicenter of perfumery, the Atelier serves as our global center of excellence. Its mission is to merge art, perfumery science, and technology, in order to reinvent fragrance creation, speed up development, and nurture breakthrough ideas. It serves as both a creative lab and a strategic innovation engine for all Estée Lauder Companies’ fragrance brand portfolio .
Premium Beauty News - How does being based in Paris bring particular value to the Group’s fragrance innovation strategy?
Lucas Nanini - Paris is a global hub for perfumery and beauty innovation, home to top suppliers, perfumers, and creative talent. Being based there anchors the Atelier in a vibrant ecosystem of artisans, startups, and research institutions, enabling faster collaboration, open innovation, and early detection of emerging technologies and cultural trends.
This completes ELC’s global innovation footprint across Melville, in NY, Shanghai, in China, Oevel, in Belgium, and now Paris
Premium Beauty News - What are the objectives of fragrance innovation for the company?
Lucas Nanini - Our goals for the company have been laid down in details in our ‘Beauty Reimagined’ strategic vision that our CEO, Stephane de La Faverie, presented a year ago.
The Atelier will enable us to accelerate research, develop new technologies, foster experimentation, and respond more rapidly to evolving consumer trends - ultimately reducing fragrance development timelines by 30 to 50% in the years ahead.
Actually, prospective innovation plays a crucial role to bring more relevant and differentiated fragrance experiences to market faster.
Premium Beauty News - Regarding methodology, you speak of “innovation stacks” rather than linear approaches. How does this translate concretely in the world of fragrance?
Lucas Nanini - When we refer to “innovation stacks,” we mean advancing multiple layers of innovation - ingredients, AI, consumer insights, sensory testing, and sustainability - parallel rather than in a traditional linear sequence.
By integrating these capabilities simultaneously, we create a dynamic exchange between science, creativity, and data. This allows us to experiment more rapidly, refine concepts earlier, and accelerate development timelines while maintaining the highest standards of craftsmanship.
It is a more agile, integrated way of innovating - designed to strengthen differentiation and leadership.
Premium Beauty News - You carry out extensive screening of start-ups and innovations. What are the criteria that allow you to pre-qualify innovations or identify those with real market or creative potential?
Lucas Nanini - External innovation / open innovation is indeed a key element when looking at fast, agile, prospective innovation. Unlike traditional approaches, that ultimately follow the pace and processes of the larger company, L’Atelier team is instead taking the codes/pace of the smaller startups, while ensuring the screening is compatible with what the company would be expecting to see down the line.
Our presence at the Cosmetic 360 trade show in Paris, and the fact our both was packed from morning to evening was a sign that startups are feeling a great connection with our way to consider innovation. Unfortunately, I will not be able to share with you our secret ingredients that will make our future innovation a success.
Premium Beauty News - Artificial intelligence plays an increasingly important role in innovation processes. How does this manifest within the Atelier?
Lucas Nanini - AI is integrated at every stage: from fragrance formulation optimization and ingredient prediction models, to consumer mood analysis and personalized scent recommendations.
And for us, there’s a distinction between “visible” AI (what the consumer experiences, e.g. through personalization tools) and “invisible” AI (what enhances creation and evaluation internally). Many have been converging towards what creates the most visibility, but for us, both are equally important.
Also, AI fluency is becoming a core capability across the Atelier team.
Premium Beauty News - How do you envision the perfumes of the future, and what weak signals are you already observing today?
Lucas Nanini - We see strong signals shaping the future of fragrance - from the rise of Gen Z and the growing importance of self-expression, to the increasing role of scent in emotional wellbeing and home rituals.
Fragrance is experiencing a cultural acceleration, and consumers expect both creativity and responsibility.
At the Atelier, our focus is to transform these signals into meaningful, differentiated fragrance experiences that resonate with today’s and tomorrow’s consumers."
