The Rose Rebellion

Mathilde Laurent, the nose behind Cartier’s scents, leads the maison’s renaissance of the rose with a collection that redefines its expression. Nafeesa Saini discovers the new interpretations.

- Nafeesa Saini

The rose is a cornerstone in perfumery, but for Mathilde Laurent, it was never an olfactory favourite. “I never wanted to work with roses. It is a flower that is almost cemented to classicism and boredom,” says the first female in-house nose for Cartier. For years, people had requested her to take on the bloom, and she finally acceded to the challenge after deciding she would convey the rose her way.

Laurent was a teenager when she was told that she should be a perfumer. “It’s by a bit of chance, by pleasure and by luck that I became a creator of perfumes.” After experimenting with photography, she delved into the world of olfaction. In 2005, she joined the house of Cartier and created a repertoire of high perfumery successes including the Roadster (2009), La Panthère (2014) and Cartier Carat (2018).

Three of her new haute parfumerie concoctions are radical rejections of gender norms surrounding the nose. Named “I Only Love Wild Roses”, the range defies the romantic archetype of the bloom and its connotations of girlish innocence and submissive femininity.

Pure Rose from the Les Épures de Parfum collection is a raw and authentic embodiment of a naked flower in the wilderness. Made for women who adore men’s fragrances, Oud and Pink from the Les Heures Voyageuses range sensually blurs the lines between the masculine and feminine with the rich woody notes of tropical agarwood. Finally, a fearless punk rose takes shape in the L’Heure Osee from the Les Heures de Parfum collection, capturing the moment when a wild rose blooms.

We caught up with the Parisian to discuss her approach to perfumery and the conception of these three scents, which are exclusive to the Cartier boutiques in ION Orchard, Marina Bay Sands and Ngee Ann City.