Last week, French perfumer Suzy Le Helley attended her first-ever fashion show. Before taking her seat, she began to notice the notes of her work wafting around the Observatoire de Paris—like a whiff of fresh laundry from the future, there were bright aldehydes and soft floral notes, a rosy classicism, earthy sandalwood, and comforting white musk floating in the air. It wasn’t a scented show like we’ve seen from designers like Willy Chavarria this season. Instead Acne Studios team members were wearing the fragrance she and Frédéric Malle created with the house’s founder and creative director, Jonny Johansson.
“They weren’t forced to wear it,” she says with a laugh, just happy that instead of being pressured by an elaborate marketing plan, they actually chose to don the prerelease lab samples of Acne Studios by Frédéric Malle (which launches April 17). “It was on women and men, and I realized it’s real, not just a dream.”
It all started a couple of years ago when she first met with Malle after being connected by perfumers who recommended the 32-year-old to him as a rising female talent. “I wouldn’t really focus on age, but in a way it’s quite linked because Frédéric is working with master perfumers who are over 50 with lots of experience,” Le Helley explains. They met for an hour, and she sent him home with 10 “very short ideas” of accords she’d prepared. Six months later, he called her to see if she’d be interested in partnering on the first-ever fragrance for Acne Studios.
“I felt very lucky to be working with him on this project, and I really wanted to give my best,” she says, knowing that she’s the youngest perfumer Malle has ever collaborated with, not to mention a woman in a world that’s long been dominated by male noses.
For his part, Malle says he “didn’t know if she was a man, a woman, whatever—she was just a perfumer to me.” Sitting with Le Helley at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Paris next to an order of french fries, he continues, “When we decided with Jonny to do something together, I reviewed all the work that I had kept from younger perfumers, and all the fragrances that I thought had an author that was worthy of working on this project were from her.”
Johansson agrees that the work, not age or gender, mattered most, saying Le Helley’s accord was “just the most interesting route from all aspects.” And he was already wearing Malle’s perfumes when a letter from the renowned perfumer arrived on his desk inviting him for coffee in Paris last year: “I really adore what Frédéric does and how he’s been promoting the noses.”
It took less than eight months and hundreds of fragrance trials to come up with the final version inspired by visual references Johansson sent to Malle, like Ingmar Berman’s film Persona, neoclassical Swedish Grace design, and a summerhouse from his childhood with a certain pastel glow (the same pink shade that Malle painted on the base of the bottle to tint the fragrance without artificial dyes). “It had to be light, it had to be fresh and crispy, but without being citrus and sporty,” says Johansson. “This sort of kitschy, slight softener touch to the classical foundation was related to fashion and also to something very comfortable and secure that still would feel new, as I really love.”
The smell of fresh laundry is the first to hit from the scent, and Malle points out that fabric softeners have their own classical roots. “What people don’t know is that many of those fabric-softener scents are inspired by classic French perfumery,” he says, calling out “very comfortable, very clean, very crisp” connotations in peoples’ minds. “The warm feeling that an Acne scarf can give” is how Le Helley describes the final version and says knowing that Johansson’s team is already wearing it is “a good sign.”
And when someone rebuys a scent, you know it works. “It’s kind of connected to fashion in a weird way,” says Johansson of fragrance’s ability to create a signature. “We never really set out to do perfume here at all. It’s just based on having the opportunity to work with Frédéric, otherwise I don’t think it would happen.”
For Malle, tapping into the world of designers and young talent is as important as tapping a very primal instinct with his work: “You might fall in love with someone because of their smell,” he says. “And we create that. This is what we do in life.”
Acne Studios by Frédéric Malle launches April 17 at fredericmalle.com, as well as at Frédéric Malle and Acne Studios boutiques worldwide.
