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Inside the new Annick Goutal boutique in Manhattan’s West Village, a framed black-and-white portrait of the founder sets a glamorous tone. Appropriately so: The raven-haired beauty got her start as a model (scouted by David Bailey) before setting her sights, and her nose, on perfumery more than three decades ago. At the back of the shop, past the shelves displaying the signature flacons (shapely, feminine vessels tied with ribbon), past the richly grained mélèze wood paneling, her daughter Camille gives off her own air of unstudied elegance, in a two-tone blazer and distressed jeans.
As a young girl, Camille spent afternoons dutifully affixing labels onto bags at her mother’s first boutique, on rue de Bellechasse in Paris. “I remember a lot of French actresses and singers coming there. I was always like, Wow, wow!” she recalls. In 1999, when Annick died of cancer at age 53, Camille returned to the fragrance house, joining forces with her mother’s longtime collaborator, Isabelle Doyen, and carrying on the work of distilling memory into scent. Vogue sat down with both women to talk about upcoming projects, their 1,500-note perfume laboratory (“It’s an organized mess!” jokes Camille), and the budding young noses in their households.
This is the company’s first U.S. boutique. Why here, why now?
CG: We’ve wanted to be here for so many years. It was one of my mother’s dreams. We are trying to modernize the image of the brand, but of course we want to keep the spirit of my mother. She was funny, she was crazy—but people don’t really realize that. They think she was very classique. This location is the best because it has a Parisian atmosphere, with the small buildings and very trendy shops.
Even for non-perfumers, fragrance is so tied to memory. What are your earliest scent memories?
CG: You know, when you’re young you don’t realize that your parents do special work. I thought everyone had the same kind of life. For my mother, everything was interesting, so she would make me smell everything. The newspaper, she would smell it. Or when we were going to the countryside, she would cut the leaves and crush them in her hands and make me smell them—cypress, lavender.
Tell me about your namesake perfume, Eau de Camille.
CG: Charlotte, my stepsister, is four years older than I am, so [my mother] first created a fragrance for her when Charlotte was thirteen. I was a bit jealous, so I was like, “Can I have my fragrance as well?” She said, “Yes, of course, I thought you were not interested in having one. What kind of scent would you like?” We had a small terrace with a lot of ivy and honeysuckle, so I just said, “I want something that smells like our garden.” A few months later, she had this incredible scent made for me.
She had such a strong point of view in terms of beauty. How did that inform her work?
CG: She wanted everything to be perfect. I remember, when she was choosing paint for our apartment, she would redo it and redo it until it was the right color. It was the same when she was doing the formulas with Isabelle. She always had a strong vision of what she wanted to do, or where she wanted to go. It ran in the family. Bonpoint was created by my mother’s sister. You can feel it in the collection: all the varieties of colors, the quality of the fabrics. It’s the same kind of research.
Isabelle, when did you start working with Annick?
ID: In 1985. She was setting up her Castiglione shop at that time and needed a place to continue to work. When she came to my studio, I saw that beautiful woman—wow. She said, “I want to create a vetiver [fragrance]. Would you like to help me do it?” Of course! Then she said, “I have an idea for a perfume that I’ve wanted to create for such a long time, which is a rose that smells like pear.” I looked at her and said, “Since my childhood I’ve wanted to make that perfume.” It took us ten years to create that rose-pear smell, Ce Soir ou Jamais.
Of all the fragrances, which ones really resonate with you?
CG: Ce Soir ou Jamais is, for both of us, the most touching one because when [my mother] was at the hospital for the last six months, she was still working on it with Isabelle. Isabelle would visit her every day, and they would smell the fragrance. It’s incredible: Six months after her death, her scarf still smelled like it. It was very comforting and reassuring—in a way she was still there.
Songes is another one; it means “daydream.” I lost my mother in ’99, and in 2000 I went to Mauritius island with my boyfriend because I really needed to escape. Every evening at sunset on the beach there was a crazy scent. I couldn’t see where it was coming from, so I went to the reception and asked about it, and behind the hotel there was a massive frangipani tree. [Isabelle] lived in Tahiti when [she] was young, so she knew exactly the smell.
Un Matin d’Orage, the eau de parfum launching next month, was previously released as an eau de toilette. Has the formula changed?
CG: A little bit, not that much. The first formula was inspired by the rainy season in Tokyo. I often visit between April and June when it’s always raining and there are gardenias everywhere. Isabelle worked on the formula—you can almost smell the rain. For the eau de parfum version, it’s the same idea, but it’s more electric; a storm at night [rather] than a storm in the morning.
Camille, what’s your approach to fragrance: Do you change them or are you loyal to one?
CG: I’ve been wearing the same three for ten years. I switch between Songes, Neroli, and sometimes Eau Sauvage, from Dior.
ID: Infidelity! [laughs] Annick used to wear L’Heure Bleue from Guerlain. She was crazy about Guerlain. I am too.
What about your children? [Camille has two daughters; Isabelle has a son and a daughter.] Do they have the family nose?
ID: Oh yes, the family nose!
CG: Especially the youngest [Camille’s Maïa, age 11; Isabelle’s Mandana, age 12].
ID: Sometimes what they say about smells, no other child would remark. For example, if someone is running beside us, chewing gum, one of the children will say, “Mama, will you get banana chewing gum like this lady’s?”
Annick Goutal
397 Bleecker Street, New York City, 646.964.4819.
annickgoutal.com
The post Perfumer Camille Goutal on Her Mother Annick’s Legacy, Her First Stateside Boutique, and Fragrance “Infidelity” appeared first on Vogue.