Roland Mouret's debut perfume name was inspired by his experience of being bullied as a child. The London-based designer teamed up with French perfumer Etat Libre d'Orange to create fragrance Une Amourette, which includes notes of cardamom, patchouli, vanilla and pink peppercorn. The name translates as a fling, or a moment of passion, in the designer's native French, but Mouret admits it also has a deeper meaning for him.
"When I was at school, 'amourette' was the name the kids were bullying me with. I kept my little bully name in my pocket and I'm taking it back now," he said during an interview with Women's Wear Daily. "Everybody thinks that a perfume is a business strategy that revolves around money, but for me it was just based on emotion."
Mouret, 56, has made a name for himself as one of the foremost fashion designers in the industry over the years, and showcased his spring 2018 collection at London Fashion Week on Sunday. And while he's now well-versed in his career of choice, he had to go back to the drawing board to create his scent.
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"Twenty years ago, I started draping in my kitchen without knowing how to, and now I got the opportunity to create a smell without (knowing) how," he smiled.
Among those helping Mouret create Une Amourette was Givaudan perfumer Daniela Andrier. The pair became close friends during the creation of the fragrance, with Mouret adding he used Andrier's experience to help him create a product with "maturity".
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Recalling their first meeting, Mouret remembered: "It was a designer meeting an amazing nose, but also a man meeting a woman. Our first meeting was kind of like a date, we talked about what men feel and what women feel, about the skin and the ways we can share moments with another skin, the attraction of it, the sweat, every side of it. That was our starting point. It was quite important for me to be able to create something that already has maturity, it had to be a journey."