Message in a Bottle

MANILA, Philippines – Listening to Jean-Pierre Grivory’s anecdotes was like treating myself to a good book. I went on a journey, smelled wonderful things, met different personalities and traveled to many places. He got me at the mention of “Salvador Dali.” Salvador Dali is one of the world’s greatest artists. Like Picasso, he was able to constantly reinvent himself, always ahead of his time. He has brought Surrealism, a movement of art that called to one’s dreams and nightmares. Famous for his melting clocks in Persistence of Memory and other fantastically eerie paintings, Salvador Dali was a man of extraordinary vision, capturing the mysterious realm of our subconscious and translating these into moving pieces of art.

In 1983, Les Parfums Salvador Dali was launched. Jean-Pierre Grivory, then in his thirties, took the genius of this celebrated artist and worked hand in hand to create a masterpiece of a perfume. His goal was to approach perfumery the way art was approached. This brave feat by Jean-Pierre Grivory launched a monumental stir in the perfume business. At a time where perfumery was just starting out as fashionable element, he could sense (and smell) the success of his project. The launch was even made in a museum, a truly brilliant execution for such a terrific product.

His inspiration for this fragrance was Dali’s painting called Apparition of The Face of Aphrodite, wherein Aphrodite’s delicate yet alluring features appeared amidst a seafoam-colored landscape. Jean-Pierre set to work in his drawing boards and after six studies and mock ups, he came up with the classic bottle bearing a nose and mouth, echoing the prominent features from the painting. He shares how he truly appreciated Dali’s significant input for each mock up.

 The magic of creating a bottle design out of a masterpiece is Jean-Pierre’s forte. The beauty behind this concept is that first, it carried Dali’s uniqueness and quirkiness in its design, it was the very essence of Salvador Dali, in a bottle of fragrance. According to Jean-Pierre, branding doesn’t happen when you write someone’s name on a product; branding happens when the product becomes the personality behind the name. Next, that it maintained its integrity as an art form. As with fine works of art, this product was first released as a limited edition scent and then two years after released in selective markets. Jean-Pierre’s fragrances are now available in the Philippines, at Marionnaud at the Mall of Asia. In September, he says they will be available at Rustan’s.

 In the early days in his career, Jean-Pierre, possessed that same secret ingredient that Dali had. He had the ability to recognize a need –– a need or a vision that has never been perceived and he took risks. He put up his own perfume company in the ‘70s, when not many cologne waters were out in the market. One of his first products had a catchy name to it: Café. It was well received by the market, since café is one of the most used words by his fashion loving market. This gave him the confidence to pursue greater ambitions, seeing how powerful a brand can be. He shared how people at conventions would not remember his name but would refer to him as Mr. Café, the brand itself.

He owes this to timing. There is, in the grand scheme of things, a place where a brilliant idea is formed, and there is also, and most importantly, a momentous window of opportunity that requires one to just jump and make this idea come to life. Jean-Pierre took the plunge. This is what happened and this is how he approached Salvador Dali to collaborate with him in this fragrance that he had in mind. Of course, a number of other visionaries approached Dali as well, but what separated Jean-Pierre from his competitors was his approach to perfumery as an art form, and his philosophy of treating this fragrance as a piece of art from the genius and brilliance of Dali’s artistry.

Salvador Dali said, “Of the five senses, the sense of smell is incontestably the one that best conveys a sense of immortality.”

There is power in a fragrance that can create and recreate an immense range of emotions. A person’s scent also has the power to behold and to repel another human being. Like memories, scents are uniquely personal to each person.

In the industry of fashion where perfumes are described in terms of notes and words like fruity, floral, musk, etcetera, Jean-Pierre maintains that he is in a business of trying to rationalize something irrational. He mentions music, painting, words, poetry — all of these moving the soul but not really meant for explanation. If you try to ask him to put his scents into words, he would readily refuse. The beauty of scents is that although you can manufacture them and bottle them, you cannot truly manufacture and manipulate the magic and memories that it can evoke to its wearer. He likens it to love, where “the very day you wonder why you love or don’t love, is the day that you’ve stopped loving, you haven’t loved at all.”

As the president of Cofinluxe, also the company that has created Charriol Parfums and Morgan De Toi, he is also the designer of these scents and the award-winning packaging that they come in.

What I find to be amazing aside from all of his marvelous concoctions and creative concepts is his extremely down-to-earth manner. He had quite a sensitive nature that perhaps enabled him to pick up different trends. A sensitivity to sniff around for the next best thing.

When a woman chooses a scent, she takes two steps. First, she smells it, and likes it, she likes how it sends out a message of who she is. Second, she considers the one whom she wishes to please or the one she loves and this determines whether or not she should buy it.

Women today are many things with many roles to play and these many things have many different wardrobe requirements. Same goes for the scents. Perfumery is the wonderful and intoxicating infusion of art and fashion. It is a powerful tool of self-expression.

 Because he understands this about women, his lines are as diverse and his range is as wide as Dali’s art. Never stuck in his style, forever fashion forward. (Dali also designed jewelry, made films, designed sets for theater and even furniture.) And while there are named categories (fruity, floral...) there are nuances unspoken of that happens in each woman’s life.

A woman can wear a scent and feel beautiful, extraordinary, exotic, powerful, alluring, pretty, soft, feminine and so on. This, he also understands about women.

Given that we women dislike it very much when we are stereotyped, pegged, labeled as one thing or another and simply put in a box, perhaps it would be an exhilarating idea, that we may delightedly find ourselves in one of Jean-Pierre Grivory’s delightful bottles.