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The way to make and experience perfume

Art & Parfum is a perfume design studio created in 1946 by Edmond and Thérèse Roudnitska.

Singular company, based in Domaine Sainte Blanche on the heights of Grasse, the cradle of perfumery, Art & Parfum is one of the top sites for french-style perfume creations.
 

Numerous experienced perfumers have since then followed Edmond Roudnitska’s work and vision «to raise the perfumer’s science to the status of an art».

art de composer le parfum |  art et parfum
art de composer le parfum |  art et parfum
art de composer le parfum, art et parfum

The legend
Edmond ROUDNITSKA
 

In 1926, Edmond Roudnitska discovers work as a perfumer as well as the composition of perfume.

He draws a parallel between art, aesthetics and the work with perfume.

Inspired by Emmanuel Kant, the philosopher, and Etienne Souriau professor of aesthetic at the Sorbonne, Edmond ROUDNITSKA emphasises the olfactive sense. His main goal is to raise perfumery to the status of an art.

 

A free man and an avant-gardist, he chooses to become an independent perfumer when he creates Art & Parfum, his production centre in the middle of an enchanted garden called Domaine Sainte Blanche.

 

He creates a current of thought which gives a real status to the perfumers and to their ideas. He publishes several books which explain his philosophy and give body to his ideas.

In 1978, he sets up the Edmond ROUDNITSKA foundation with the aim of isolating scientific elements in olfactive research.

 

He becomes friends with various painters, and sculptors but also with fashion designers like Marcel Rochas, Christian Dior, and the Dumas family at Hermès with whom he shares his artistic values. This friendship enables him, in partnership with these artists, to create legendary perfume such as Femme, Moustache, Diorama, Diorissimo, Eau fraîche de Dior, Eau sauvage, Diorella, Eau Sauvage Extrême, Eau d’Hermès, Le parfum de Thérèse

 

He showed us the way. That of a master-perfumer who is the author of legendary perfumes with their place for ever in history. It is this vision which continues with the independent perfumers federated by Art & Parfum, Accords & Parfums and Au service du Parfum.

 

Edmond ROUDNITSKA will remain one of the greatest perfumers of the XXth century.

The writing
The art of making perfume
 

A perfume although ephemeral or short-lived is the result of long work, a long initiation.

There exists nothing more subjective and personal, nothing more fragile and delicate. The perfumer exposes and reveals himself.

 

It is an empirical art based on observation, memory, proportions, feelings.

The young perfumer goes through the basics: like a musician, he learns to recognize and memorize raw materials which will be his tools to perfume words, colours, forms, ideas and to aim towards what is beautiful.

 

By dint of hard work and patience, he acquires the necessary technique and becomes a composer able to imagine and materialize an odour. He makes of his recording creations a means of expression which will highlight his personality.

The perfumer’s work is a question of experience, culture and taste. Each perfumer as well as each human being, is unique and possesses his own writing.

 

Edmond Roudnitska used to say « write down the name of 20 to 30 raw materials on a page, concentrate a few minutes on this list and start to number them from the most obvious to the least one in 20 minutes. All these materials will wisely comply with what we want. Things finally will take place as we decided, it’s a rare pleasure. Rare because it took us 40 years to prepare these 20 minutes ».

 

The model Art & Parfum, Accords & Parfums, Au service du Parfum is here to help independent perfumers to express themselves freely through this master-perfumer’s experience and to bring you to achieve perfume of quality.

The commitment
Being sustainable
 

Art & Parfum and their perfumers have decided to commit themselves to defend the values of a perfumery of quality through sustainable projects in total transparency:

 

  • To work with scented plant growers, such as Rose Centifolia of Grasse, to offer our perfumers and customers a unique raw material.
     

  • To support research on olfaction with the Foundation of France and the Edmond Roudnitska’s foundation.
     

  • To defend the art of making perfume in various schools (Isipca, Ecole de chimie de Montpellier, Ecole supérieur du parfum), with a view to taking part in the Osmothèque and the Société Française des Parfumeurs.
     

  • To carry on, near the general public and the professionals concerned, with the educational approach initiated by Edmond Roudnitska who wrote numerous books on the individual’s access to perfumery, and sharing his experience (Que sais-je, l’intimité du parfum…).

 

Our mission: defend this heritage and raise it to the status of an art.

Art de composer le Parfum | Art et Parfum
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