Fragrance Friday: hello, Acne Studios par Frédéric Malle

Acne Studios, whose mohair scarf has become a quintessential winter accessory, have collaborated with Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle to create an instantly covetable scent that inhabits that sweet spot where fashion, perfumery and art intersect to create something really rather extraordinary.
Driven since their inception by the ambition to create a radically new aesthetic, both houses draw their essence from photography, architecture, culture and design, and apply those creative principles to everything from boutiques to clothing, fragrances to bottles. Both Frédéric Malle and Jonny Johansson, founder and creative director of Acne Studios, have always chosen to explore alternative paths, with a multidisciplinary vision of their art, and a steadfast commitment to the principle of absolute creative freedom. This common approach has given rise to this unique olfactory collaboration, just in at MECCA.

For this special collaboration, Frédéric called on perfume prodigy Suzy Le Helley (above), who trained at the renowned French perfumery school ISIPCA and the Symrise Perfumery School in Germany. Having caught the attention of the master perfumers Annick Ménardo and Maurice Roucel, who became her mentors early on, today she utilises her talent at the fragrance house Symrise. And despite graduating just a few years ago, Le Helley has a handful of fragrances under her belt already, including scents for Courrèges and Hugo Boss, but the Acne scent is the biggest launch of her career thus far.
She has said that she draws inspiration from the diversity of plants, scents and flavours that she discovers in her daily life and on her travels, where she frequently meets producers of natural raw materials. Passionate about botany since childhood, she has also developed a taste for synthesis, and synthetic materials, which expands the palette and creative output of perfumers. Le Helley likes short, precise, easy-to-read formulas, where each ingredient is carefully administered to deliver a clear message. For Le Helley, “a perfume must smell like the message it is sending, with technical mastery always at the service of the aesthetic and the emotion.” Malle’s focus has long been trained on aldehydes – synthetic components which lend a perfume a fresh and dazzling quality, such as a zesty or a metallic note – and he and Le Helley combined functional and rich materials to achieve the exceptional in this new gender-free creation.
On the perfume house’s olfactive map, Acne Studios par Frederic Malle lands distinctly on the “soft” side, firmly planted between “crisp” and “warm.” That softness is also present in the bottle, whose pastel gradient glow is the result of a neat, simple trick: the base of the bottle is painted and, using an optical system, the colour is diffused in shades through the fragrance. Just beautiful!
So yes, Frédéric Malle put Acne Studios in a bottle. Infinitely cool but also charming, and definitely reminiscent of the perfect cosy scarf.

You will find Acne Studios par Frédéric Malle here.