Scents Of Style

Stéphane Le Man, director of operational development of French perfumer Diptyque, shares more about the brand’s artistic influence and its first boutique in Singapore

Tell us about Diptyque’s creative process. We work closely with a perfumer and illustrator together in a collaborative process; sometimes it starts with an illustration, a scent, or a memory that we want to reproduce. One of the three cofounders, Desmond Knox-Leet, is a painter; he thought of using the raw materials of a fragrance in the way that a painter would use colour pigments to create an olfactory landscape. His artistic background is also why the illustration featured on each perfume is so important to us—it’s always on the bottle, handmade and created in ink.

In your opinion, what makes a good home fragrance?