Perfumer Christine Nagel sees scents as colours and textures

Chirstine Nagel is a creature of habit. As head perfumer of Hermès—a job she’s held since 2016—she arrives at her workshop on Paris’s rue de Penthièvre every morning no later than 8:30 am, and begins her workday. “I believe in the virtues of discipline and hard work for a perfumer,” she says of her routine.

The latest culmination of this discipline is Barénia, the first chypre fragrance by the house. When I first took a whiff of it at the Hermès store in Mumbai, I was taken aback by its complexity. Bold, sensual, layered. It was both fresh and woody, soft yet strong. I sprayed it on my wrist and it lingered on my skin, its heady notes unravelling and leaving a trail as the day progressed. “The chypre’s allure is commensurate with its complexity because it is not a material, but an archetype of perfumery—a blend of raw materials that creates a particular style,” explains Nagel.

In simpler words, chypre is a family of fragrances that isn’t characterised by a type of note, but rather a unique combination of contrasting notes. Typically, chypre fragrances constitute a classic trio of notes: citrus top notes, a floral heart, and earthy, mossy, and woody base accords. True to this structure, Barénia’s composition boasts bergamot orange (grown and harvested specifically for the maison in southwest Italy) and miracle berry (a fruit native to tropical Africa), blended with butterfly lily from Madagascar, anchored in an intense patchouli and oakwood base. It’s all about a delicate balance of ingredients. “The miracle berry gives Barénia an appealing note of softness,” Nagel reveals.

The fragrance has been 10 years in the making. Nagel, who started her stint at the French maison in 2014, recalls, “I knew as soon as I arrived that I was going to create a chypre for the house.” The inspiration for the fragrance was the Hermès woman. “It took me a long time to get to know them and to understand and internalise their unique, charismatic sensuality.” 

Barénia is the perfect choice for those who love sophisticated leather fragrances with a subtle balance of warmth and freshness. It shares its name, in fact, with the heritage barénia leather that is used to make Birkin bags, while the design of the bottle borrows four domed studs from the Hermès Collier de Chien bracelet, another signature of the quintessential Hermès woman. “For me, Barénia is a contemporary manifesto, a fragrance of conviction that embodies the absolute freedom of women,” Nagel says of her creation.

Below, the renowned perfumer talks about her foray into the elusive world of perfumery, her rituals, and how she visualises scents.

When and how did you get drawn to the idea of perfumery as a career?

My encounter with fragrance came through my studies in organic chemistry and my first professional experience working in a lab at Firmenich, the Swiss-Dutch fragrance and flavour manufacturer. I saw Alberto Morillas, the renowned master perfumer, from my office window. He was asking two young women to smell his trial fragrances. I saw their smiles, felt their emotions, and perceived their pleasure. I knew at that precise moment, this job, which allows you to give so much, was for me. Then I couldn’t rest until I had become a perfumer, constantly learning, experimenting, and perfecting my knowledge. I wasn’t afraid to take risks. They turned out well for me. And some wonderful encounters have marked my life. Scent is my life and my expertise; it is my chosen profession, and it continues to fascinate me to this day.

Are there any rituals you engage in before you start work?

I believe a form of routine gives rise to creation. I start every morning at 8:30 am, with my journey to the workshop on rue de Penthièvre, a stone’s throw from 24 Faubourg Saint Honoré, the home of Hermès. This time in the car is like a bubble, a little laboratory for olfactory experimentation, but also my airlock between my professional and personal worlds. When I arrive at my workshop, I first smell the previous day’s work, then my day follows the rhythm of my creations.

What are some qualities or skills that make a good perfumer?

If we could define that, there would be many more schools and perfumers! A fragrance is a composition of knowledge and emotion. Knowledge is work, hard work. It means endlessly smelling things to build up a memory bank of scents. Fragrance is not a ‘cold’ product, but an object inhabited by dreams and memories, so I believe you need a certain open-mindedness—to the world, to ideas, and to cultures.

What’s your favourite type of fragrance? Are you partial to any ingredients?

It may seem surprising, but I really don’t have a favourite! Each scent tells a story and opens a particular imaginative world; each is fascinating when you take an interest in it and work on it. And I do not want to deprive myself of a single one either due to habit or preference. But I have to admit that I’m quite partial to patchouli, which is a material that is putting up quite a fight and that still has aspects I haven’t yet discovered.

How do you know when a scent is complete, and you’ve got the recipe right?

There is a kind of immediate self-evidence that defies reason. I rely on my intuition with a kind of immediacy that tells me that I have got it.

What emotions does Barénia evoke in you?

Barénia, for me, is the expression of a fascinating, free, and fulfilled woman. She embodies boldness, strength, and grace in action, with her instincts as her ally.

You’ve mentioned you can ‘see’ scents in the past. What does that mean and how does it help you?

It’s something that came to me gradually. Scents appear to me in colour or texture, while another perfumer might hear a musical note. A scent alone is just a scent. It needs contrast and nuances, provided by other notes, in order to exist fully. Like an artist choreographing their colours, I stage scents that mutually enrich each other. I believe that each of the fragrances I create paints a picture of life’s emotions.