For the release of Hermes’ Barenia Intense – a more powerful and intensive patchouli and leather- noted chypre iteration of the cult-loved original – ELLE sits down with Christine Nagel, Hermes’ highly-regarded Master Perfumer, to talk notes, inspiration, the importance of taking risk – and who she might have been in a parallel universe.
ELLE: Barenia Intense is, at its heart, a chypre fragrance. How would you describe chypre?
Christine Nagel: This Chypre has a structure that I really love, I adore it. I always wanted to create a chypre fragrance so Barenia [which launched last year] was my secret project. Chypre has an amazing elegance – and that elegance is very addictive. When you love a chypre, you love it for the rest of your life. The source of inspiration comes from an emotion, a certainty, a desire. I’m totally free [to create at Hermes] as nobody tells me do this or do that, I’m so lucky to be able to really trust my instinct.
ELLE: A Chypre fragrance usually has oak moss, but you have done something different for Barenia Intense…
C.N: It was a real choice to not take the moss I because I find it a bit outdated. I’ve chosen the oak wood, but a roasted oak wood. Oak is a very hard wood but roasted oak wood extract is the opposite. It’s very supple as a note. It’s very enveloping. It’s almost like a room. And for the patchouli, I use two types of patchouli. Is the first version is a Patchouli, which has been treated like they treated [the extract] in the 1950s – rustic, authentic. The second is an absolue – a high tech molecule, which is a very intense patchouli. It’s more licorice, deeper, and for me, it brings an interesting sensuality.
ELLE: What else has gone into this new fragrance?
C.N: The specificity of the bergamot. I asked for the bergamot to be picked when they were still a bit green; before they became completely mature. And so it gives a sort of crunchy bergamot, which feels even more modern. I was also very lucky to receive the first extraction of Butterfly Lily. It’s a tiny lily from Madagascar. It is very delicate in its size, but it has a very strong signature in its fragrance.
ELLE: Both Barenia and Barenia Intense are inspired by Hermes’ Barenia leather. Can you talk about the link between the fragrance and Hermes’ leather?
C.N: Berenia for Hermes is a leather which has a life in it. It gains a patina over time. It ages beautifully. The artisans show me, when you make a little scratch on the leather, if you just rub it, the scratch disappears. There’s really that sensation of the skin. And in fact, the artisans, when they talk about Barenia leather, they say it gives back the caress. I thought that was so beautiful. I see a parallel with chypre because chypre reveals itself on the skin, on a sense stripper. It smells good, but it really reveals itself and it’s put on the skin. The difficulty was to bring that leathery note visible, but also keeping it very central and soft. You’ll tell me whether that worked or not.
ELLE: The bottle is so beautiful and is inspired by the Collier de Chien bracelet. How does it reflect the juice inside?
C.N: It’s [only] when I finished my fragrance that we start thinking about what bottle would suit the fragrance; what communication would suit the fragrance. And as a result, when we asked Philippe Mouquet, who is a designer who’s been working with Hermes for so many years, I spent A lot of time with him, one to one, explaining the creation, the positive things, the difficult things, what I’ve gone through, what was instinctive, what is heritage. We smelled the raw materials together. He left for three weeks to work on it, and when he came back, he had three proposals – when he opened his sketches, it was so obvious for everybody. He’s taken the iconic bracelet and really made the link between the iconic structure of the bracelet, which is so classic, and made into a bottle. It was marvellous for us, we didn’t even ask ourselves to look at something else. Then of course there were all the technical difficulties, because, as you know, the simplest things are the most difficult to make.
ELLE: Were you always going to be a perfumer, or did you how did it, how did it all start for you?
C.N: I was born in Switzerland. I did an internship in chemistry, [then] went into organic chemistry, working at a science faculty in Geneva. [I then went into] raw materials… that’s where I discovered the profession of perfume – I knew then that I wanted to be a perfumer. It was very complicated at that time: I was a woman, I didn’t come from the south of France, I wasn’t the daughter of a perfume. So I [took] small jobs, different jobs; the side-step eventually gave me a specificity in the way in which I work. You always have to take risks. You must take risks. I had that dream, and even if I had to take risks, and side steps, I wanted to be a perfumer. I’ve been a perfumer now for 40 years now
ELLE: How do you like to work when you’re creating a fragrance?
C.N: I work on the top floor of the Hermes perfume building. It’s a place that’s very close, very secret. Just three people have the keys to it. I love to work alone with my assistant. I start doing my exercises – we are a bit like an athlete in the morning to warm up. My assistant Richard prepares scent strips with different fragrances, like blind testing, to train myself every morning, and then it’s down to the everyday work. I smell the creations I’ve made both on the scent strip and on my skin. It’s very important for me to smell and test on my skin. So if you come and see me on a normal working day, I’ve got stickers all around my arm. I also spend a lot of time receiving suppliers who present new materials. Because I have that freedom, I often ask them for special things.
ELLE: As a perfumer, your life must mingle in with your work. Have you ever had any moments in your life that have influenced your work and your creations?
C.N: Well, yes, of course, I have personal emotions and olfactory moments. Whether I go to a very nice restaurant or when I’m traveling, all of that nourishes me. I have a husband who is a perfume as well [renowned perfumer Jean Claude Ellena]. So on the weekend, we don’t talk perfumes, no. These are the moments where I nourish myself with different things [other than fragrance]. Except for when I test and wear [fragrance], we really avoid talking perfume. Even if my husband smells things, we don’t talk about them, he has his secret garden, and I have my secret garden. I think that’s a good thing.
ELLE: If you weren’t a perfumer, would there be anything else that you would like to do?
C.N: A midwife. When I was a child I wanted to be a midwife so I yes, I would have, I would have, you know, given birth to babies [instead] of perfumes.
ELLE: How do you know when a fragrance is ready?
C.N: In Hermes there’s no marketing. I am given total free reign, and that’s what I love. I’m one of the rare people who can exercise in full freedom in my job. I trust my instinct, which has never betrayed me. And technique. Technique is very important. I work for a wonderful house, it really is the Holy Grail.
ELLE: Barenia Intense has an element of strength and resilience but also has that softness. What does a strong and powerful woman look like to you?
C.N: I never really create a perfume for a type of woman. Of course, I draw from my personal memories. But the heritage that is represented by Hermes, the objects collected by the family; they have meaning and a significance. It’s very important to have that respect and to put all the values of Hermes into a creation. And I must say that Berenia has an assertive personality so I think that people who wear it – women or men, because a lot of men like Berenia – will be people with a certain personality.
ELLE: You have been in the fragrance and beauty world for a long time. What does beauty mean to you and has it changed over the over the years?
C.N: Oh yes, yes, yes, it’s changed. I’ve been working for 40 years and things have changed. Yes. I think change is always interesting, though, you know, because it’s a bit like seeing the glass half full or half empty. [For example, when you can’t use a] certain raw material, you could say, “Oh, my God, we not going to be able to work on it”, or you can say, “well, how do I circumvent the problem?”. “What can I find that’s different?” I love to work like that, and I feel that somewhere it opens a door, and it forces us to be creative. It forces us to be different, to test something different, something else. So changes are good.
ELLE: And trends in fragrance must have changed over time too…
C.N: Of course. 30 years ago, there was a lot of unisex notes – made for neither feminine or masculine. Then we had periods where you had very big powerful florals such as big tuberose fragrances. And for men, very woody. Then [there was] a very sweet period with very caramel, very sweet notes. But all of that fluctuates. I hope that today, we will do things that have a greater signature and more personality. People want something that has character. I have a lot of freedom. I’m not forced to follow the others. For Barenia, I took a concerted choice to work on the Chypre, knowing that the chypre is something very special. I’m happy to have that freedom to make things differently.
Hermes Barenia Intense is available at Hermes boutiques and online this September www.hermes.com/
