

to documentaries, chief of which was the seminal The Silent World, created in collaboration with explorer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau. Malle’s brother, Guillaume, is a former banker who now uses his extraordinary knowledge of cinema and art history in his work as an art historian. “My childhood was a kaleidoscope of scents,” Malle recalls. “I grew up like any normal child except that I had parents, especially my father, who was interested in literally everything in life. It forced me to be curious to try and reach that level. The only difference between other children and myself was that I was told perfume was an important thing to explore. From the smell of the Paris metro to the scent of flowers in summer and, of course, the perfumes that people used to wear around me, I noticed every smell as I was growing up.” But the young Malle would first divert his path a little, moving to New York to read art history and economics, before dabbling in advertising. It was in 1988, when he joined the prestigious perfume laboratory Roure Bertrand Dupont, that the die was finally cast, allowing him the opportunity to befriend the leading perfumers of the time while immersing himself in their world. “For the longest time, I did not allow myself to [work in fragrances] because it was my family’s [background] and not mine,” he muses. “My ambition in life was just to be myself. Then, when starting to work in this field, I absolutely felt a sense of destiny.”

SEE:Luxury appeal

