Today, all brands want to be different. But which ones will dare to take risks, especially in concept development? “Where do we get the ideas for tomorrow’s fragrances? That’s the big question. At IFF, we’ve been working for years with design, architecture and fashion schools, etc, to come up with avenues of thinking and exploration,” says IFF Xavier Renard, general manager France.

In March 2009, 12 fragrance projects were presented to IFF perfumers by students from the fashion department at ENSAD (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris), after six months of work and “a generous partnership, where IFF was involved in a fragrance master class and coaching on a fragrance project, providing students with their expertise on the relationships with designers, design and fashion that they are learning.” IFF celebrated its 15th anniversary of partnerships with the Royal College of Art in London and its sixth year with Royal Fashion Academy of Antwerp. A wonderful exchange of good processes.

At Firmenich, for 10 years now, the marketing team has been working on new ideas with fragrance design, a proactive approach to assist house perfumers in the creative process. In 1999, they were already talking about body and soul (reconciling body and mind) and of the new ecology the following years. Then, very quickly, of sustainable development, in 2004 of fragrances stories (today called storytelling), the importance of materials in 2006, and this year of poetry. “This allows you to stimulate creativity overall, in house and among brands, to whom we offer a parenthesis in their projects,” explains Ms. Desprez, Firmenich Fine Fragrance marketing director Europe.