Harry Fremont of Firmenich is one of the most lauded perfumers within the industry and yet ask a perfumista to name a perfumer who has won multiple Fifi Awards and M. Fremont’s name is unlikely to be the first name from their lips. It is only when you list some of the fragrances he has been responsible for that you realize he has been making his mark for over 20 years now.
On that honor roll of fragrances are Calvin Klein ck One, Vera Wang, Michael Kors Michael for Men, and two from Tom Ford: Tom Ford Private Blends Noir de Noir and Tuscan Leather. He has succeeded at every level from the department store to niche. I was honored to have the opportunity to ask M. Fremont about his passion and his latest creations David Yurman The Essence Collection.
Flower paintings: Georgia O'Keefe
M Fremont told me the moment he knew perfumer would be his calling came through his love of gardening and smelling flowers he said, “The first time I was able to discover I could recreate the smell of a flower by mixing ingredients together using my nose, I knew I had found my calling.” With that love of flowers it was no surprise to find out that his favorite artist outside of perfume is Georgia O’Keefe.
One of M.Fremont’s passions within perfume is that of trying to use the most economical ingredients instead of the most artistic ingredients, his feelings about this nearly jump off the page:
“This is a subject I am very passionate about and thank you for asking this. Yes I see some changes in a good direction but we are still very far from using our amazing palette of ingredients we have available today to its full potential. I strongly believe that if we were doing that, people would enjoy much more wearing fragrances because they would have beautiful signature and character and at the same time be easier to wear than most fragrance we do today. Also fragrances would be more addictive so consumers will do this repeat purchase we are all looking for rather than jumping from one fragrance to another without finding one they truly love. In every consumer product quality of the materials used is what makes the difference being a car, a piece of furniture, electronics… why do some people think they can deny that to fragrances?”
David Yurman and Ashley Olsen
The great majority of M. Fremont’s fragrances have been for clothing designers and David Yurman is the first Jewelry Designer. His experience with David Yurman was summed up like this:
“Some perfumers associate their art with music and painting, for me it is more about sculpting with clay: because I always imagine my fragrance in space, you do a primal olfactive shape and then you add more material here or there. As David Yurman was originally a sculptor, I felt a much stronger connection with him than with some clothing designer and it made the whole process more enjoyable and productive.”
The three fragrances in the David Yurman The Essence Collection are inspired by gemstones; pink tourmaline for Delicate Essence, citrine for Exotic Essence, and peridot for Fresh Essence. For someone who chose to become a perfumer by the smells of flowers M Fremont addressed the challenge of capturing odorless gems as a fragrance:
“Perfumers in their line of work are translators: we interpret emotions, textures, moods, lifestyle and quite often colors . Each stone had such a specific color that they were quite easy to interpret with their own olfactive direction.”
M. Fremont chose to return to his garden for the heart of each of these fragrances; rose is a common theme for all three:
Delicate Essence takes a solid rose core and surrounds it with lotus blossom on top along with musk and woods in the base.
Fresh Essence is a classic fruity floral opening with apple and cassis before rose, peony and water lily take over the heart leading to a base of light woods and musk.
My favorite of the three? Exotic Essence uses Casablanca Lily to enhance the spicy facets of rose before settling into a warm Oriental base of vanilla, amber, and sandalwood.
David Yurman's famous "Cable" bracelets
As enjoyable as the fragrances are the bottles are also quite pretty. I wondered if M Fremont paid attention to the bottle and it is clear that he does:
“Yes absolutely David especially wanted the cap to be silver so the color of the bottle would be even more contrasted the same way he does with his jewelry. Every perfume is also an object that you have pleasure to look at on your dresser and to touch. The aesthetic of the bottle is always very important in the mix and the David Yurman Essence Collection delivers that.”
I was interested to ask about the future for M. Fremont and whether he wanted to interpret some other designers vision into fragrance his answer shows that instead of reaching out he prefers to let things come to him:
“In this very competitive business, I believe it is very difficult to think that way as you don’t always succeed where you want. I prefer to work with the flow of projects and have sometimes wonderful surprise like the original David Yurman project for example, rather than setting my sight on something and being deceived at the end because that fragrance did not come my way.”
Fifi Award Trophy
Finally, I had to ask someone who has worked on so many Fifi Award winning fragrances whether he knows a fragrance is award-winning while working on it; “This is very difficult to say as it is not always the image of the success on the market and you never know how the public and the people who judge will react. But yes sometimes when you create a great fragrance that fits a very well done concept in a beautiful bottle you start dreaming what if ?…”
What if….? Indeed.
–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor
Art Direction: EIC Michelyn Camen
Editor's Note: Among Harry Fremont's FIFI awards include Kenneth Cole Black, Vera Wang and Juicy Couture for Liz Claiborne Fragrances.