The first week of Grasse perfume celebrates the diversity of the sector

The first week of Grasse perfume was opened on Thursday to show the experience of Grasse and the wide diversity of the creation of contemporary perfumes.

Until Saturday, conferences, exhibitions, facilities, workshops and tours will take place in the center of Grasse and its surroundings.

Organized by Nez, an olfactory cultural movement created in 2016 around a specialized publishing house, the event is the counterpart of the Paris perfume week created last year, before an edition in Shanghai in October.

“We want to present a contemporary perfume panorama, explain what has happened here, what is still doing and what will be done tomorrow,” Romain Raimbault, director of Grasse Perfume Week, explained.

While the main groups are associating with the event and opening their doors in different parts of Grasse, the Mecca of the perfume, the emphasis is on niche perfumers, invited to show their creations in a Palais des Congraratos with original fragrances.

“Thank you for believing in us. This is the beginning of a beautiful story,” said the mayor of the city, Jérôme Viaud, who had installed pink aroma dogs in the pedestrian streets of the city center.

Among the many proposals for professionals, enthusiasts and curious, the Swiss company Luzi will organize a screening of the movie “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg” on Friday night, with fragrances created for eight specific scenes, inspired by what the characters eat, images of the set and atmospheres.

In an exhibition, Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, Doctor In Chemistry became a perfume, looks back for 20 years of creations, associating each fragrance with the extract that forms its spine and an evocation of its inspiration.

“I do not start with a fictional human objective, such as industrial cabinets, but with a history,” said the perfume.

Cliffs Corsicans for “Acqua di Scandola”, the breath of a horse for “equistrius”, the light of dawn for its sales success “le cri”, which brings together “all the luminous materials” around Ambrette Seed, or a weed carpet for “bad Aimé”, which combines splashes, roots and nettles around an inul.

Like all niche perfuists, it has remained small: six employees, with annual sales of just over two million euros, a quarter of which is generated in France and the rest in some forty countries, including Italy and Kuwait.

But he invites the public to cultivate his “olfactory curiosity” so as not to be satisfied with the “consensual notes” of the great hits of the sector: “big brands, small brands, no matter. Use your nose!”