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34 boulevard Saint Germain:
more than an address
Profession: perfume maker diptyque has
continually improved its know-how for the last 50 years,
with 15 eaux de toilette, 4 Cologne, 24 home fragrances and
innumerable scented candles. The first eau de toilette,
L’Eau, was created under the impulse of Desmond Knox-Leet,
one of diptyque’s three creators. It leaves a spicy freshness in
its wake and was designed with both men and women in mind.
This innovative olfactory register created surprise, and met
with success. The heir to great, classic, English perfumes, this
uncommon and uncomplicated eau de toilette highlights the fine
quality of the raw materials and set the tone for future creations:
atypical.
The next instalment is a passionate story of gentle dreamers. A story
of people setting off on a fragrance hunt, wanting to capture scents
like others chase butterflies, with a net over their shoulders. In fact,
diptyque wanted to encapsulate the scent of its first boutique with
rare and precious fragrances, to give everyone a little part of this
place and its history.
A particular meeting turned
out to be decisive. Two years ago, Myriam Badault,
This unusual style is not a coincidence. It originates from a place
that has a genuine soul, the place where the company was
born. This mythical address is 34 boulevard Saint Germain, in Paris.
To celebrate 50 years of creation, diptyque has chosen to give
this address a signature line; the embodiment of the brand.
A unique scent, for the body and the home, called, quite naturally,
34 boulevard Saint Germain.
director of development of diptyque, and Olivier Pescheux,
perfumer at Givaudan, met Roman Kaiser.
Profession:
“fragrance thief”. In reality, this scientist goes on Scent Treks
for Givaudan. He appropriates the perfume we inhale when
we lean in to smell the corolla, a fragrance that has nothing
to do with the one extracted from plants that have macerated
in solvents. An exact copy of nature, in a way. diptyque liked
the principle and asked the scientist to put his technology to
the service of a dream and poetry and give substance to a unique
project: capture the scent of 34 boulevard Saint
Germain and put it in a bottle.
The adventure began, and was far from easy.
Roman Kaiser, convinced of the project, went along to
the address with his material, on a quest akin to Patrick Süskind.
In comparison, trapping the scent of a rose is child’s play. The flower
exists physically, is well defined and ready to give itself up. Seizing
the essence of a place, a boutique, is another story altogether.
The wealth and diversity of aromas were such that Roman Kaiser
had too many avenues to follow in the end..
The boulevard
Saint Germain boutique was not going to give up its soul so easily…
Or the scent of the kilim rugs,
and the wall hangings
that characterise the place?
Or maybe wood
should be the star…
With the shelves on which were arranged
the eaux de toilette and the old counter
that served as a till?
With the many fragrances
of scented candles that diptyque pioneered?
The very particular scent of the drawers
where the soaps are lined up?
The dilemma was huge..
In essence, the intention was
to interpret the memory of diptyque and its rich history, one that
is constantly being reinvented through new projects, in the notes of
the emerging emblematic fragrance.
The task was complicated, perhaps even impossible. And yet so
obvious at the same time, with certain scents clearly standing out
as soon as you enter the boutique; the odours of great successes, of
eaux de toilette sprayed time and time again for the pleasure of
customers, and candles freed from their jars many times over to
fully appreciate their subtle scents.
Four aroma “blocks”, which can be compared to musical chords,
were created with Roman Kaiser’s help. Each one highlights
the favourite raw materials that sign the company’s creations:
Unusual green notes composed of damp mosses, crumpled
blackcurrant leaves, sun-dried fig leaves.
Spices like
those you can smell on the markets in Damascus.
Fresh
flowers from English gardens, or elsewhere. Rich, exotic
woods as well as milky and comforting balms.
Around forty raw materials
make up the composition. The initiated
will recognise the filiation with the company’s
classic fragrances. The head features the
sparkling and luminous scents of blackcurrant
and the green leaves from L’Ombre dans l’Eau and
Philosykos, sustained with the freshness of rose pepper
To extract the essences of such an unusual olfactory palette, a
guiding idea was needed, the right balance between the blocks,
minding that the composition became perfectly harmonious
while preserving the personality of the base notes. To facet
the fragrance, Olivier Pescheux and Myriam Badault decided to
intensify certain raw materials belonging to diptyque’s palette.
The result is a fragrance that doesn’t belong to any olfactory
family, with an innovative and complex signature,
that is neither feminine nor masculine.
and citrus notes, followed by the spices (clove, cinnamon,
cardamom, etc.) of L’Eau.
The heart is a story of
flowers: rose (L’Ombre dans l’Eau), Egyptian geranium
(one of diptyque’s favourite flowers), and touches of the
heady Do Son tuberose with a dash of iris and violet
to maintain a gentle and lively aroma.
The base
is a combination of woods, balms and resins. The
note gives style and suppleness, especially to the
eau de toilette. And then there is this small
olfactory accident, the eucalyptus,
which titillates the nose.
34 boulevard Saint Germain, is available not only
as a perfume to wear, but also as a home fragrance. “They are
both based on the same harmonies, but with a different degree of
complexity”, specifies Olivier Pescheux. “The home fragrance
reveals itself more quickly, in turn fresh, green and spicy. It is rustic
and is more suitable for perfuming a place”.
Each of the five products that make up the line has a connection
with the atypical and refined universe dreamed up in 1961 by
Christiane Gautrot, Desmond Knox-Leet and Yves Coueslant, the
three friends who started diptyque.
The
famous oval-shaped label
with a parade of letters drawn in India ink by Desmond
Knox-Leet is omnipresent. It is printed on the boxes and on
the mat white of the home fragrance spray. It is this label that
determined the shape of the eau de toilette’s glass bottle, the
form of the generous soap and that of the candle’s mat biscuit
white jar. The latter is wonderfully elegant, with its label
engraved into the material, lighting up like a lithopane as soon
as the candle is lit. As for the wick, it is also steeped in the eau
de toilette, the Ariadne’s thread of this story where everything
makes sense.
As a sign of ultimate luxury, on the eau de toilette’s bottle, which
is sober to the extreme, there is not the slightest noticeable
There is just transparent glass and, like a
mark.
seal, the address, 34 boulevard Saint Germain, engraved on the
magnetised stopper made of thick, black Bakelite.
The concave base of the bottle evokes the rounded form of the
paperweights sold in the boutique with decorative items which
have rubbed shoulders with printed fabrics since the first
Christmas at 34.
Out of concern for detail and to recall the graphic and coloured
fabrics made by Christiane Gautrot and Desmond Knox-Leet,
each object is presented in a fabric sleeve printed with one of the
brand’s most famous patterns: the Prétorien Burgundy, like the façade of 34, for body products;
and moss green, like the boutique’s walls, for home
products. Splashes of colours that differentiate, at first glance,
eau de toilette, soap and candle, scented oval and home spray.
These two colours line the inside of the white boxes and
decorate the outside with a fine border.
“The perfume of the soul is remembrance”, wrote George Sand.
With this new signature line, the soul of 34 is inscribed
in modernity.
perfume
eau de toilette 1.7 fl. oz
eau de toilette 3.4 fl. oz
perfumed soap 7 oz
Home fragrances
scented candle 7.5 oz
room spray 3.4 fl. oz
scented oval
34 boulevard Saint Germain
perfume
—
eau de toilette
1.7 fl. oz - 3.4 fl. oz
—
—
perfumed soap
7 oz
—
34 boulevard Saint Germain
Home fragrances
—
scented candle
7.5 oz
—
—
room spray
3.4 fl. oz
—
—
scented oval
—
Available in March 2011
The visuals can be downloaded
at the following website:
www.diptyqueparis.com/34saintgermain_en