The Editor's Chair Is Empty - Frederic Malle Leaves His Own Brand

With reviews of Angeliques Sous La Pluie, Le Parfum De Therese, Lys Mediterranee, Vetiver Extraordinaire, Une Rose, French Lover and Dans Tes Bras

This post starts from a position of ignorance. But then almost every single thing that has so far been written and said about the subject I intend to address has, at best, been speculation, so I won’t allow a shortage of facts to prevent me from joining the party. The issue at hand is Frederic Malle’s recent announcement that he plans to leave his eponymous brand at the end of June — a development that has, unsurprisingly, generated a considerable amount of online discussion and commentary. 

Quick history lesson. In 2000, after many years of working in and being intimately involved with the fragrance industry, Malle created Editions De Parfums Frederic Malle. In keeping with the ‘publishing house’ structure he wanted to project, he placed the names of his perfumers front and centre on his packaging and his bottles. He even went so far as to display portraits of them at his boutiques. In a relatively short time, the brand earned the respect of both critics and customers, and came to be seen as a model for other start-ups to follow. In 2014, Malle sold his company to the Estée Lauder group, but retained his role as creative director. Since then, he has very much remained the face of Editions and has seemingly not permitted anybody else to represent it or speak about it in an official capacity. He has continued to release scents on a regular basis, some of which, such as Anne Flipo’s Synthetic Jungle (renamed Synthetic Nature) have enjoyed considerable acclaim. And now he’s leaving. 

I’m not going to pretend to know why. The speculators I alluded to above are theorising about all manner of likely (and less likely) reasons and scenarios. Take your pick from whichever of the following you fancy: i) thwarted creative freedom, ii) clashing and disagreeing with the marketing strategies employed by a multi-national monolith, iii) not wanting to put up any longer with his perfumes being cheapened, iv) the end of the time period for which he was contractually obliged to remain at Lauder, v) the alleged indignity of being ‘forced’ to collaborate with the clothing brand Acne Studios for his latest scent. The tales go on and on, but they’re based on little to no hard evidence. Over the years, I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve told me that they know someone who knows someone who heard directly from Malle that he “always” regretted selling to Lauder, but such rumours are rife in what remains a secretive industry. And anyway, I’m sure there were plenty of days when he regretted selling, and there were probably just as many days when he thought it was the best thing he’d ever done in his life. Monumental decisions such as the one he made in 2014 can rarely be encapsulated in a single, absolute emotional response. 

It’s fascinating that few theorists seem to want to accept the most prosaic reason for Malle’s departure: that he’d like to retire. He’s certainly of retirement age, and perhaps his current priority is to focus on other aspects of his life and, shock horror, spend some well-earned time with family and friends. Time may well prove this version of the story to be woefully incorrect, but at this stage, we don’t know where the truth lies. 

What we do know is what Malle has achieved in a quarter of a century. It would be an exaggeration to state that he created what was once usefully called  ‘niche’ perfumery, because that happened several decades before the launch of Editions. But when it comes to Malle and his accomplishments, no exaggeration is required, as he has many other reasons to feel proud. It is absolutely true that he almost single-handedly brought perfumers out of the shadows and helped consumers realise that the liquids they enjoyed pouring on their flesh had been created by Actual People working in a profession with a rich, complex history. It’s true that he enabled the individual style of his perfumers to emerge in their work. And it’s also generally accepted that he’s given us some of the most downright beautiful olfactory creations of the 21st century.  

From the moment I encountered it, I have considered Editions to be one of my favourite brands. Indeed, whenever anyone asked me to take them on a perfume-sniffing session, the first place we’d go to was the now-defunct Malle boutique at London’s Burlington Arcade. My thinking was that you couldn’t really start anywhere better, especially if you were after works that would be relatively easy to source in future. The number of perfumes on offer was large without being unwieldy. The range of scent genres covered by the collection was impressive. And there wasn’t really a single bad fragrance amongst them. At worst, they were interesting. At best, they were glorious. 

Of course, after 2014 things changed. And what I mean by this is that regardless of whether the perfumes themselves were significantly altered, the way the brand was perceived went through a distinct — some would say damaging — shift. It was no longer seen as the champion of perfume artistry: it was now a Lauder brand. Rightly or wrongly, those two identities are considered to be mutually exclusive. 

The derision that was often aimed at Malle was, to an extent, unfair. Several people — some of whom I consider to be experts on such matters — have told me repeatedly that they’re convinced many of the brand’s original scents have been changed and diminished since the Lauder purchase. (Musc Ravageur is frequently cited as an example.) Doubtless, there must be a considerable amount of truth in this. But one thing we can pretty sure about is that reformulations would have occurred anyway, regardless of the acquisition. Anti-allergen standards have expanded a good deal since 2000 and there’s no way Malle would have been able to keep all his perfumes exactly the same until now, Lauder or not. (It’s for this reason that I’m especially worried about smelling the current formulation of the heart-stopping En Passant, as I suspect its original iteration contained materials that are now banned, but let’s park that tragedy to one side for today.)

It’s also overly simplistic to state that joining a large group automatically entailed a cynical sell-out. Indeed, as far as the Big Buyers go, Lauder actually has a pretty respectable track record of allowing the brands in its stable to remain distinctive. Had Malle sold to L’Oreal (which seems to ruin just about every perfume brand it touches) I think we would have been looking at a very different situation right now. I suspect even LVMH, and perhaps Puig, might have handled him dubiously. By the same token, if belonging to a multinational doesn’t correlate with poor quality, then being independent certainly doesn’t correlate with high quality either; we have enough sub-standard indie brands out there to bear this out. 

So in some ways, the artistic path taken by Editions in the last ten years is perhaps not terribly different from the one it would have taken without Lauder’s involvement. Most brands create many of their finest pieces in the early stages of their existence, and then proceed to attain similar artistic heights with decreasing frequency. This certainly applies to Malle. His opening salvo was nothing short of astonishing, giving us Iris Poudre, Noir Epices, Une Fleur De Cassie and several other gems. It took him five years to make the earth move again (with Carnal Flower) and another five to create a comparable seismic phenomenon (Portrait Of A Lady). Even before the Lauder days, his releases started to use broader, arguably less interesting brushstrokes. But the aforementioned Synthetic Jungle marked a noteworthy high point. And just a few months ago, Heaven Can Wait — a romantically retro carnation put together by his old pal Jean-Claude Ellena — showed that he was still more than capable of charming, surprising and beguiling his admirers.

I do worry about the future of his brand — surely, only he is capable of leading and guiding it — but I am confident that his professional legacy is intact: he has curated and brought to life a body of work that has changed the face of modern perfumery. I wish him all the very best for the future and I do hope I get to meet him a few more times: listening to him talk about the industry and his work is almost as pleasurable as wearing his perfumes. If his plan is to retire, I hope he enjoys every single moment of his time off. But if one day he decides to meet up with one of his scent-making friends and starts throwing ideas around for a new creation, I will be beside myself with excitement to see what he comes up with. Until that happens… I’m counting my pennies and stocking up on some of my favourites!

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As regular readers will know, over the years, I’ve reviewed most of Malle’s releases. However, there are some gaps in my coverage of his output (a few of them unforgivable) which I aim to fill right now, in the rest of this post…