"All my Perfume 66 years" (interview with Serge Lyutensom)
 Photographer, painter, visionary ... Name Serge Lyutensa associated both with its beautiful photographs, like the Japanese woodcut and its aromas, which resurrected the idea of ​​luxury and art of perfumery.

Lyutens Serge (Serge Lutens) was born in Lille in 1968, he moved to Morocco, and in 1970 - in Japan. His collaboration with Shiseido in 1981 led to the creation of a mysterious Nombre Noir. In 1992, there was Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido, which has become a "home" for the rich perfume collection Serge Lyutensa.

We are pleased to present you an interview with Serge Lyutensom in which he shares his thoughts on his creations, inspiration and views on perfumes and art in general.

1) In one of your interviews you said: "Morocco gave me an understanding of perfume." Can you please tell us more about your first experience, and that in Morocco you are so excited and inspired? What fragrant memories are you from Morocco?

It is very difficult to separate the olfactory impression of the rest. However, I can say that before I arrived in Morocco in 1969, I have a feeling this is the fifth was completely undeveloped, and to put it bluntly, I just hated perfume! The aroma of Morocco associated for me with the lifestyle that allows you to be a person in a dense crowd. The crowd there - this movement, sound, laughter, play ... In the end, the sense of smell to join the rest of my senses.

 "All my Perfume 66 years" (interview with Serge Lyutensom)
 2) What aspect of the creative process for you the most enjoyable? And what is the most challenging?

"Creativity" - the word used today everywhere where it is necessary and where it is not necessary. For me, creativity - this is what is driven by the desire to give people what you know and feel connected with taste and rejection that tasteless. The greatest pleasure is when, for example, in the ballet, the dancer is no longer just a human body. It merges into music. The dancer is the music. He transcends the physical world and become part of a single matter.

3) Study your perfumes like Flipped beautiful pages of the ancient book of fairy tales. Despite the different moods and images of your fragrance, they take us to a beautiful fantasy, another universe. When you compose a new flavor, you initially have some history to it, or it is created in the process?

"History" is not quite correct expression. Rather it is a conscious and unconscious relationship that is born out of a desire, not out of choice. This relationship is living in and moving the creative process.

4) Recently, I've seen pictures of your beautiful garden in Morocco, published in pamphlet Japanese Shiseido. Is it true that it often becomes a source of inspiration for you? If someone walked today for your garden, what smells surrounded him?

Inspiration - this is not something that comes to flash. This is something that is within us and is at all. All components for inspiration originally in ourselves: the elements, smells, colors, shapes ... and when they begin to talk, you realize that they have always existed. It turns out that all of my fragrances already 66 years old!

 "All my Perfume 66 years" (interview with Serge Lyutensom)
 5) Do you have experience of the artist and the photographer. How do you understand the connection of perfumes to other arts?

I believe that there is no art, but only artists in the broadest sense of the word. In this sense, the creation of film, photos, stories, or perfume is the same process. There is a noble art and inferior art. It's people - and not very noble.

6) When you think about the smells you to somehow visualize - as colors, shapes, sounds, and so on?

I do not create them for some images. They exist for me without it, as I have already described. Design for me - is the use of perfume for the transfer form, sound, color ... For me, it is automatically translated into the language of fragrance. As an artist, which is completely expresses itself through the canvas, I fully express themselves through fragrance.

7) There is much talk about the fact that because of the saturation of the market perfumes lost their luxury status, at the same time can not be denied that the perfume is an art. What do you think should be done to strengthen the recognition of the art of perfumery?

I think that can be an art in the hands of the artist, it ceases to be after the revision and correction. A "patch", I mean how can we force the child to behave there, how we want it, "Come to think of their desire to create perfumes, sell fragrances and shut up!" All that may one day become a luxury, initially be considered marriage. Such an attitude is formed world that opposes all changes craving for self-preservation. Nothing is more robust and permanent than mediocrity. And again, I notice that many parents refuse their children to recognize that they are capable of a lot!

8) The theme of the commercial perfumes: Do you think that it is a great tragedy, a problem?

The biggest problem of commercial perfumes is that people continue to buy it! Following the system, the repetition of ideas, support monotony ...

9) What smells trigger your childhood memories?

As a child, it had everything: good and bad. To imagine that childhood was completely happy, as it is accepted, it would be madness. Childhood - is the formation of his own world, which includes everything that we have ever met. This is both a poison and a temptation.

10) If you could create something special (aroma, photo) to a historical figure (your favorite artist, poet, writer, or someone else's), for whom would you do it?

The combination of revolution and beauty in one person is impossible. I would be lying anyway. I have an idol, they are dear to me. Select someone one would be to humiliate the others ... and yourself!

Translation: Ludmila Lavrushina
Source: Bois de Jasmin