CHYPRE &CHIC

After 71 fragrances in the house's 187-year history, Hermès debuts its first chypre scent. Here's why Barenia, and the whopping 998 tests it took to birth it, matters to perfumer Christine Nagel.

- ALLI SIM

Fewjournalists can say they've lost count of the number of encounters they have had with revered Hermès perfumer, Christine Nagel, over the years. Yet, here I am in her leather-clad presenc, atop a building in the heart of Paris's 8th arrondissement-a chic district steeped in French history. Although a laboratory and office, Nagel's panoramic, apartment-like space brims with warmth and creativity. Like her, it is engulfed with light and the potential for magic and mischief. I sink into the sofa, like a child eagerly awaiting the next instalment in her favourite heroine's story.

Face aglow, Nagel reveals how Barenia, her latest perfume and the 27th for the house, came to be. The story writes itself.

A creation of the mind

"When I started at Hermès, I knew straight away that I would make a chypre. For me, chypre is the most elegant, timeless structure there is. And when you love a chypre, you love it your whole life. But in order to construct this Hermès chypre, I had to get to know the Hermès woman. I understood that these were women who trusted their own taste and instinct. It is similar to those exceptional women like Nancy Cunard or adventurous explorers like Alexandra David-Néel and naturalist Isabella Bird-women who chose their lives, trusting in their own instinct much more than they chose their husbands or their dresses.

"In perfume making, you might understand fruity, floral, musky, woody because the name itself describes the olfactory family. But chypre is not a material. It’s an archetype of perfume design. It’s a creation of perfume designers. Classically, in a chypre, we always have the same materials: you’ll have a fresh top note, a citrus note, an opulent floral bouquet of rose or jasmine, oakmoss, patchouli and sometimes a little bit of incense.