With a small constellation of fragrances inspired by icy moons and imaginary stars to his name, the world cannot get enough of couturier turned olfactive maven Marc-Antoine Barrois’ celestial perfumes
If you are not the sort to be tempted to explore faraway lands in the flesh, etymology — the art of delving into the origins and history of names and terms — offers a safer, more shielded approach to discovery. Besides enabling the usage of words in a more precise and impactful way, there is a delicious pleasure in slowly peeling back the hidden layers of meaning in each of them, which then leads those who lean towards curiosity into a whole new universe.
Aldebaran, one of the hottest luxury perfumes to hit the market recently, is an example. Launched this year by couturier Marc-Antoine Barrois together with perfumer Quentin Bisch, its very name evokes exotica. To Star Wars fans, it could perhaps sound like Alderaan, a fictional planet Princess Leia Organa once called home, before it was destroyed to demonstrate the firepower of the first Death Star. To the scientifically inclined, however, Aldebaran is an orangey-red celestial body in the constellation of Taurus, one of the oldest and most easily recognisable and whose brightness earned it the nickname “the eye of the bull”. Those with a love of languages, however, would know that Aldebaran in fact stems from the Arabic al dabaran, or “follower”, as it dreamily appears to follow the Pleiades across the night sky. Hindu scholars, on the other hand, cite the red star as a representation of Rohini, one of Daksha’s 27 daughters and herself the favourite wife of Chandra the Moon god.
The book of genesis
Although stars can never be considered young — their ages range from a few thousand years to the beginning of the universe (13.8 billion years) itself — Barrois’ ascent in the olfactive galaxy undoubtedly is. His first fragrance, B683, debuted only as recently as 2016.
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“You know, I am not at all into the ‘outer space’ thing,” he laughs when met over a cup of tea (he seldom indulges in anything fortified) in Kuala Lumpur. “But I wanted a personal name, something intimate. After all, I created the fragrance initially with only me in mind. I never dreamt there would be other fragrances to come.”
Mulling over something suitable yet special, Barrois took time to consider the character of the scent. “The fragrance Quentin came up with was already so unique. So I thought hard about what would be the most personal thing to share with people.” It turned out to be a favourite childhood book. “I love Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,” he says animatedly. “I love the story of how the little prince considers his rose mysterious and unique, falling in love with it despite its flaws and protecting it with all his life.”
Drawing from this tale of purity and innocence, of a world that has yet to be contaminated by hate, greed and societal constraints, Barrois fixed his gaze on the little prince’s planet. “Actually it is not even a planet but an asteroid called B-612,” he says.
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In Saint-Exupéry’s 1943 novella, B-612 is a small asteroid, no bigger than the size of a house, but with three volcanoes and a perpetual baobab problem. “I woke up one morning with the answer. Instead of B-612, I would incorporate my birthdate instead, calling it B683,” says the Libran whose birthdate falls on Oct 6, 1983.
For his next hit fragrance Ganymede, Barrois and his team toyed with the idea of “the fantasy of perfect beauty”. While seeking out a name, he inadvertently chanced upon what turned out to be Jupiter’s icy moon, also the largest of its kind in our solar system. “I just happened to be flipping through a book that day and came across a picture by Pierre et Gilles,” he says, referencing Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard, an artistic couple renowned for highly stylised photographs featuring images inspired by history, mythology and popular culture.
“It was as if I had a star above my head saying, ‘Hey, I am giving you the name you were searching for’,” he laughs. “Yes, Ganymede is a moon but the Greek story is about a beautiful young man. And in Pierre et Gilles’ work, it showed him embracing an eagle.”
Academics or history buffs would know Ganymede to be a prince of Troy, reputed to be the most handsome among mortals. He was said to have been carried off by Zeus, who took the form of an eagle, to serve as his cupbearer on Mount Olympus. Today, the house can count seven perfumes in its fragrance line — B683, B683 Extrait, Encelade, Ganymede, Ganymede Extrait, Tilia and Aldebaran.
Asked about the deep-layered meanings behind each scent’s name, Barrois explains: “I don’t just want to name a perfume, say ‘Tuberose’, and talk about ingredients. Rather I want to invite people into this imaginary world I am creating … and to ask them to call it their own. Life needs more creativity, more imagination. All we need to survive, really, is food, water and a roof over our heads. So everything else should be fun. We need to use our imagination, we need to play, we need to trust our own tastes — not just go along with big marketing campaigns.”
The beauty of kindness
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The eldest of five children born to a teacher father and homemaker mum, Barrois attributes a lot of his achievements to family — and their love. Citing his maternal grandparents as the first to impress upon him the art of elegance, his face lights up at the very mention of them. “They come from a very bourgeois family in the north of France, who worked in textiles for centuries. My memory of my grandfather, Antoine,
was always that of an elegant man — not just in the way he dressed, but in everything that he did. For example, in the past, when you drove on roads that required you to pay a toll, he would always stop at the one booth that would still be manned by a person and say something like, ‘Hello, you look good today. Have a nice day’. I remember asking him why he did that and not just use the automatic tolls like everyone else, to which he said, ‘Most people would not make the effort. Some might even be mean to them, scolding or complaining about having to pay a toll. So, if I can give them a nice word, to stop and say hello, I should’. The profoundness of that gesture is something I think about to this day,” he says.
Despite Antoine’s kindness, trouble was brewing. The family business had been facing insurmountable headwinds for sometime, before finally coming to a head in the 1970s, together with much of the French textile industry, as a result of globalisation and increased competition from new emerging markets. “My grandfather was still quite young when the crisis started. To save some of his thousands of employees from becoming jobless, he decided to start a whole new business early, sewing camping tents,” he says. It proved positively fortuitous that camping began to take off in a big way in Europe, particularly in the UK. “People wanted not cheap, but sturdy tents that lasted several seasons.”
History has proved that the altruistic pivot was indeed the right move to make as Cabanon, founded in 1959, continues to thrive, producing high-grade tents and folding caravans for outdoor enthusiasts in search of 100% French quality. Although the business has since been sold to another owner, the perfumer remains proud of his grandfather’s legacy. “It was a big turnaround and I like how he succeeded in finding a way to keep jobs while using their skills to create something different.”
When the inevitable day came for Antoine Lemaire to leave the world, Barrois, who was 10 years old then, recalls the funeral being inundated with well-wishers. “So many people came — people who admired him, people who received his kind words, people he had been nice to,” he smiles. “If you ask me what the ultimate elegance is today, I would still say it is kindness. I am not sure yet if I believe in life after death, but I do believe how you act, the way you behave, leaves an eternal memory.”
Nurturing dreams
For a more temporal approach to leaving a lasting memory, it would be remiss to ignore the subject of Barrois’ perfumes. Those who have spritzed on any Marc-Antoine Barrois fragrance would realise just how wonderfully his scents cling to skin. Powerful and lingering yet never once overpowering, and coupled with evocative names and encased in luxurious golden flacons, it is not surprising they have taken the world by storm.
“His fragrances are indeed addictive and powerful … with rare and unique compositions,” says Ken Lim, founder of Kens Apothecary, which has been distributing Marc-Antoine Barrois exclusively in Malaysia since March. “Each scent somehow lingers, like a soft trail of silk on the skin. It is not surprising the response has been tremendous, considering it is a new brand. Scents like Tilia and Ganymede have practically gone viral, driving strong interest and footfall in our stores.”
A quick summary of Barrois’ scent notes can best be described as Indian blossom (Tilia), tuberose (Aldebaran), black pepper and chili (B683), rhubarb and smoke (Encelade) and saffron and Italian mandarin (Ganymede). It might also surprise people to know that segueing into the world of luxury fragrance was never part of his plans. “As a child, I knew I wanted to work in fashion, though,” he demurs.
After studying Fine Arts, a 20-year-old Barrois was presenting his first collections in Lille where he was spotted by couturier Dominique Sirop, who invited him to join his prestigious atelier in Paris. Just two years later, in 2006, Barrois moved on to a collaboration with the one and only Jean-Paul Gaultier at Hermès. And in 2009, he established his own maison de couture, specialising in bespoke menswear, particularly tuxedos and accessories.
Meeting Mr Bisch
Given the exceptional qualities of every Marc-Antoine Barrois fragrance, it should come as no surprise that the partnership between the founder and the perfume creator, Quentin Bisch, should be equally remarkable. “A friend had told me, ‘Oh, Marc-Antoine, if you really want to make a perfume, do it right. Don’t do it with just anyone but do something special with a rare talent. Someone who is of a similar age to you, not the old guys out there.”
The stars quickly aligned and he and Bisch finally met in 2015. “Wow, it has been 10 years already,” he exclaims.
For perfume aficionados, Bisch is a rock star who honed his skills at Robertet and Givaudan. Sharing many affinities, all Barrois had to do was express his emotions to Bisch, famous for being able to work across different fragrance families, who would immediately and expertly transform them into inimitable perfumes.
Naturally the circumstances of how Bisch and Barrois met would be as unique as the fragrances they create. Both had agreed to meet at Le Dîner en Blanc, one of summertime in Paris’ most iconic events. Created in 1988 by Francois Pasquier and a group of close friends, the thousands-strong event can essentially be summed up as a mass picnic de luxe. The main criteria is that guests would only be informed of the location a few hours prior and all must come dressed in white. The venue too was complete with white tableware, napkins and folding chairs, among others. You get the drift.
“It is like a flash mob dinner,” Barrois grins. “It is a huge movement and you need to be put on a list to be invited. It so happened that both Quentin and I were free to attend that one year. We somehow managed to find each other despite the crowd — Le Dîner en Blanc attracts so many people, like you wouldn’t believe — and ended up talking all night long. We quickly realised we could do something creative together. Of course,
we had to discuss further but that was essentially the starting point,” he says.
On whether he still makes it a point to attend Le Dîner en Blanc, Barrois flashes a half-smile saying, “With three kids (three-year-old twins Alice and Auguste and one-year-old Chloé) to organise now, it is not so easy,” he laughs. “But when I was younger, it was definitely fun to attend.”
Love + Life
Sharing how his parents were initially not supportive of his ambitions, Barrois sighs a little, saying, “Naturally, they wanted all their five children to be financially secure. They told me that if I wanted to work in fashion and textiles, at least study maths, physics and chemistry to become a textile engineer first — which I did, although I ended up never working as a textile engineer in my life. They had their worries, particularly having lived through the textile crisis and, in a way, projected their trauma on me even though these worries were part of their past. But I know they were just doing their best as parents. Now, as a father, all I want is to raise my children to be happy adults for the future. It is a different paradigm and I don’t regret anything. My children make me so happy. And I can tell you, what I create now as a father is different from what I created before they came along. You somehow process things differently when you have children. And I like it.”
Barrois also lovingly credits his mum for teaching him to sew. “At my first fashion shows, she was always, always there — albeit backstage and still sewing and helping us finish up as we were always running late,” he laughs. Asked if his father ever gave him any career advice, Barrois says yes, but indirectly. “He did not tell me anything officially but he showed me the path, if you could say that,” he remarks.
“My father qualified as a textile engineer himself but became a teacher instead. Why? So that he could have more time and share the same vacations as his children. He chose a better quality of life with us and, yes, that meant we didn’t really have much money, as teachers are not as well paid as engineers in France. But he chose time with us, his children, his family instead. You know, when I was younger, I confess to challenging him many times on why he didn’t choose engineering instead, so that we could have more money. But now that I am a parent, I realise and appreciate the importance of his decision.”
Today, Quentin, the youngest Barrois sibling, serves as general manager of the UK arm of the perfume business. “The other brothers and sisters are teachers and psychologists as they cherish the same quality of life our father did. But I admire them all and am grateful for the loving messages they regularly send to me, saying how much they admire what I do. It’s lovely, and I can say that I have a really, really great family.”
Although work right now demands criss-crossing the planet regularly to promote his perfumes, the entrepreneurial father acknowledges that he is more fortunate than most to be able to retreat to his own little slice of paradise once the day is done. Home for the family is on Belle Île en Mer, Brittany’s largest island whose total population is just over 5,000. “I invited my entire managing team over not long ago and it was great to have them discuss work in the outdoors, in the fresh air, surrounded by nature,” he smiles. “It was two days of talking honestly about how we could continue to sail through the storm of an exceptional growth trajectory without losing our values and uniqueness. I strongly believe our independence and authenticity are our biggest strengths.”
He also grimaces when citing an example of traditional work meetings, where 12 people are crammed into a cold, soulless room, each fixated on their laptop. “You don’t even know if they are following you or not,” he shrugs. “I mean, we have our brains. We can think. That should be more than enough.”
La vie est belle
Still heady from the surprising success of fragrance, Barrois assures that his interest in couture remains steadfast. “Couture is not just for image-making,” he says pointedly.
“It will always be a small business as the most I can do in a year is 35 to 50 tuxedos, no more. I treat it as a service, a made-to-measure service for clients who are able to appreciate it. I did not choose to make couture to be famous but rather to create something artistic that people could also use. It is this that drives me.”
Eschewing ready-to-wear for its unsustainability, Barrois says couture is his paean to the planet. “Buy less but buy better, right?” he asks. Having expanded his product range from exquisite clothing to jewellery and now fragrance, he stresses that it was never intentional but an organic move nonetheless. “It is a natural progression, I feel,” he says. “I remember many happy moments, especially when I see a customer leaving in a beautiful suit. It felt so good being able to create something that could protect him from the elements yet make him appear beautiful.”
A contact once requested Barrois to design porcelain for his company, and then jewellery. “It is very emotional for me as a designer to be asked to create something as special as a wedding ring,” he says. “To know that you have been entrusted to make something that people will wear all their lives is indeed special. So now, offering a fragrance is part of that process. I just never imagined there would be more than one [fragrance] and that it would take on a life all of its own.”
With just under a dozen people employed at his fashion atelier while the fragrance side is almost hitting a headcount of 100, Barrois admits to feeling sad at the start. “I thought about the years I had spent slaving over couture, working endlessly, only to have a small group of people pay notice to my independent brand. But now, people stop me in the street to tell me how happy my perfumes make them feel, with some even asking me to autograph the bottles. I have now made peace with it. In the end, if what I do makes people happy, be it couture or perfume, then it is more than enough for me.”
