Louis Vuitton perfumes are available again, with the French fashion house offering seven choices for its first fragrance launch in 70 years.
Ingredients for the perfumes have been sourced internationally, including CO2 extractions from jasmine and May roses native to Grasse, the French town known as the world’s perfume capital. The extraction process is a first in the perfume industry.
The 162-year-old label’s master perfumer, Jacques Cavallier Belletrud, whose creations include Issey Miyake’s L’Eau d’Issey and Stella by Stella McCartney, spent months travelling the five continents to seek out exotic and rare materials for the fragrances.
“I wanted to surprise people who smell the perfumes – create emotion, bring them back to childhood or moments of pleasure,” says Belletrud, who is a native of Grasse.
His new fragrances include elements from countries including China, France, Indonesia, Italy, Laos and Peru.
For Rose des Vents, he blended a trio of roses, centifolia, Bulgarian and Turkish; with Apogee, he uses lily of the valley, Grasse jasmine and Chinese magnolia.
While most of the scents are floral, the range also has the more masculine notes of leather and wood (in the perfumes Contre Moi and Matiere Noire).
Louis Vuitton gave Belletrud the freedom to work without a deadline, and he took four years to produce the range. “The challenge was to create something that would last over the years,” he says.
The fragrances will be available in Singapore next month at Louis Vuitton boutiques at Marina Bay Sands and Ngee Ann City.