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French traditions of perfume making go back many centuries. On Wednesday the French Embassy, Alliance Francaise and Gaysorn Plaza will present "Essences Insensees" ("Pure Senses"), Bangkok's first exhibition dedicated exclusively to the art of perfume.

  Hanging in the air rather than on the walls will be 13 original scents, each created by a celebrated perfumer, or"nose", in the industry. Every fragrance has an accompanying sculpture, the result of a collaboration between the perfumer and an artist.   

One of the noses is Frederique Lecoeur, whose original scent "Un bouquet de rose pour la princess" has been specially created for Her Royal Highness Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana, to mark an event which is part of La Fete 2007, the festival for all things French being held until July 24.

Rose oil has been chosen as the major ingredient, blended with musk, gold and jasmine, to reflect the unique personality of her client. When she realised she had to create a fragrance for a princess of Thailand, Lecoeur says she had no idea where to begin as they had never met.

Fortunately, a photo of the princess attending a fashion show made a powerful impression on the perfumer. 

"In the picture, the princess is wearing an eye catching simple dress - in complete contrast to the clothes at the event surrounding her and her own colourful, bright designs. I found that very interesting - it gave me the inspiration for some of the notes and ingredients," says Lecoeur, who has drawn on 20 years of experience for this commission.

Lecoeur lives in Paris and works for Quest International, one of the world's leading scent manufacturers, developing perfumes for toiletries and the home. She is especially interested in the different bases - the solid and liquid creams - used to carry a perfume.

The perfumer admits that her most recent commission is a first - she's never designed a scent especially for a single individual, barring one close friend who she knows very well. She has, however, designed fragrances for well-known brands like Diptyque, Le Petit Marseillais and Nina Ricci, among others.

Lecoeur is part of a growing industry: It's currently estimated that around nine in 10 women and perhaps as many as half of all men use scent - even children are being targeted by advertisers. The French are responsible for a substantial share of the production that meets this global demand.

In Thailand, the import value of essential oils and perfumes from France (which come under the category of luxury goods), totalled Bt722 million last year according to the Customs Department of the Ministry of Finance. That the perfume industry is bucking sluggish economic trends seems plain from the launches of new perfumes by the big brands each year.

Lecoeur reckons this flourishing has to do with an ever-present demand for luxury, sensuality and refinement. More important still, she says, is the simple fact that the sense of smell is deeply interwoven with our lives.

"For example, you smell, say, a grape for the first time, but you happen to be in a bad mood. What often happens is that the two things become associated, so the grape becomes a bad scent for you. For me, the smell of grapes brings happiness because it's linked with a good memory. So I love it.

"What that means is that the judgement of whether a smell is good or bad doesn't come from our genes. It's something that comes out of day-to-day experience - what you smell coupled with the mood you happened to be in when you first smelled it. Which scent makes you happy and which doesn't is something you have to find out on your own through experiment."

It's true though, admits Lecoeur, that some people are happy to stick to one perfume all their lives. But today more and more have at least two or three fragrances they like to call their own. What doesn't vary is the floral notes that form the basic ingredients of every perfume.

Lecoeur is also keen to scotch the notion that to be a perfumer you have to be gifted with an exceptional sense of smell.

"I'm think most of us have a very sensitive sense of smell, but distinguishing and identifying many different smells takes hard work."

 Lecoeur learned her trade at the ISIPCA School of Perfumery in France.

"Every day we had to smell different ingredients and odours in order to recognise them," she says, speaking of her time as a student. "After becoming a perfumer, you still have to work at it, and as with any artistic profession, you need a good aesthetic sense and to be creative.

"Likewise, if you're a designer, you might be able to make a shirt, but that doesn't mean you can create a fashion."

So what does this expert of the senses sniff in the air of Thailand?

"Thailand is a country that's full of different flavours - I'm pretty sure that if I took a taste test with you, you'd win. Tastes like mango, coconut and spices you would recognise straight away. And take food like green curry and tom yam kung - it's like perfume, the combination of scents from each is different, so a local can easily distinguish one from the other," she notes.

When it comes to choosing perfume, Lecoeur returns to her earlier theme: There's no mathematical solution for which essence suits a person - you have to try each one on yourself.

One tip is to test no more than one perfume a day, otherwise the smells mingle and you won't be able to distinguish one scent from the next.

On e more thing to remember is that the scent of most perfumes or colognes is fairly long lasting. It often happens, though, that the wearer stops smelling anything after about an hour or so and then decides another few squirts are necessary. They end up stinking, of course.  

Kupluthai Pungkanon

The Nation