PARIS — Dries Van Noten may have stopped designing clothes for women, but he continues to design perfume bottles and their contents.
The Belgian designer, who retired from his eponymous label in June after nearly four decades in the fashion industry, will launch four Dries Van Noten eau de parfums on driesvannoten.com and in the brand’s stores on Monday, with the line set to hit Selfridges on September 1.
“I had a lot of fun creating my own collection of 10 perfumes,” Van Noten said in an exclusive interview. “I found it a really interesting process and I really wanted to continue with it because it’s a totally different creative outlet.”
“It’s really abstract; it’s smell. And it’s a little bit foreign territory for me to do something like that, because, of course, I’m very directly involved with colors, fabrics, materials, but here it’s very ethereal,” he continued.
Van Noten discovered his passion for fragrances during the brand’s first collection, which was released in March 2022. “I knew there were so many more options out there than what we were creating, so I thought I’d keep going with it.”
He and Puig’s Dries Van Noten label gave the perfumers a new challenge: They knew what the brand had already created: perfumes and colognes made with “unlikely combinations.”
“We said, ‘Surprise me, shock me,'” the designer said. “Show me something I hadn’t thought of in terms of materials or quantities of materials.”
The results were Vanille Camouflage by Firmenich’s Alexandra Monet, which contains two types of vanilla: Madagascar vanilla and creamy Tahitian vanilla, and Crazy Basil by IFF perfumer Jean-Christophe Hérault, which Van Noten fell in love with so much that he ditched his old favorite, Cannabis Patchouli.
“It has more green basil than tomatoes and mozzarella,” Van Noten said with a laugh.
New scents also include “Bitter Splash,” a grapefruit and botanical leather scent by Symrise perfumer Susie Le Helly, and “Chamomile Satin” by IFF perfumers Julien Raskinet and Paul Guerlain.
“We knew the collection could use something a little more decadent and heavy, and (the perfumers) came up with this strange combination of approachable chamomile and rich, almost sensual vanilla, while still being a decadent perfume,” Van Noten said.
“We’re very pleased with the results,” he added of the four new launches, which are sustainably made and contain naturally derived ingredients.
The designers also paid attention to the product’s packaging.
“So my skills as a fashion designer came back, because I really dress the perfume. I dress a non-existent person who is wearing the perfume in the bottle,” he said. “The initial idea was to clash the unlikely combinations in the scent and have them reflected in the bottle.”
They are made by combining different materials such as porcelain and sculpted metal, and for Van Noten the process is like creating fashion pieces in miniature.
“It takes the same skill set as making a costume,” he said.
Whatever technique he is using, he is 100% successful.
“I do almost everything with the same obsession,” Van Noten says. “I garden very avidly. I cook very avidly. Food never leaves my kitchen without beautiful presentation or flowers or something like that, because I eat with my eyes as much as my nose and mouth.”
The packaging reflects his personal view of what the perfume reminds him of: Crazy Basil contains a large amount of basil scent, so Van Noten chose two shades of green using opaque glass and plastic.
“The creative process is fun,” he said.
This perfume project changed the way Van Noten operated in the world.
“I just got back from Venice and I was walking around the library,” he said. “It was really hot and humid.”
There was a rather unpleasant smell of damp books.
“Old books don’t smell very nice,” Van Noten says, but he was struck by the beauty of the place, with the light streaming in and the smells mixing.
Van Noten thought, “This might be something worth us trying.”