The name of Pierre Frédéric Serge Louis Jacques Malle is known to women of fashion and fashionistas all over the world - after all, he makes magnificent fragrances for every occasion that a person has in life: for a celebration, a business meeting or a youth get-together, as well as for an ordinary working day.
Moreover, the combinations of smells in his perfume and eau de toilette are so unusual that connoisseurs marvel at how it is possible to combine seemingly incompatible things in one bottle so harmoniously? Malia's brand cannot boast of a long history of its existence, but it is already widely known all over the world.
Biography
The founder of his own brand, Frederic Malle, was born in a western suburb of Paris called Boulogne-Billancourt. His entire family was associated with the perfume industry, but no one dared to open to create their own brand. His grandfather was one of the founders of the Kristan Dior brand, but then retired, and his mother worked for Dior as a development director. My father was associated with the banking business, was mainly engaged in investments. He helped Frederick at the beginning of the journey, and was also a producer for his second son, Louis Malle, a famous director.
Interesting fact: the Mal family lived in an apartment that was once occupied by the famous perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain.
After graduating from high school, Frederick entered New York University to pursue an education in economics and art history. How these two sciences were combined in the brain of one person is completely incomprehensible, but Mal studied everything with pleasure. Not only that - he subsequently studied marketing and photography in order to know how to sell and how to present the product. Probably, even then he conceived to create his own brand.
Later he worked directly on the creation of fragrances in several companies, until he was invited to be an assistant perfumer Jean Amique. It was the prestigious Roure Bertrand Dupont perfume laboratory, and the young creator of the fragrances agreed to such a flattering offer.
Here Mal got unlimited opportunities to study different ingredients, detailed manufacturing process and perfume creation. It was a great school, and Frederick absorbed everything like a sponge to put into practice later.
He proved himself superbly with Amik, and soon the perfumer Mark Birley invited him as a business partner to the company Mark Birley for Men. This was already a new step in my career, a new step towards starting my own business.
At that time Frederic already had an authority among perfumers and consulted Hermes and Christian Lacroix on various issues, since by that time he already had decent experience in creating fragrances, and in marketing, and in advertising.
Perfumer career
This experience helped him understand that the competition in the perfumery market is very high, and at the same time, many companies create such fragrances, and differ from others only in the name and design of the bottle. Therefore, he wanted to come up with something new, radically different from what was before. And not only in terms of aroma, but also in terms of some new idea.
And Malle found an unexpected solution: he decided to immortalize the names of perfumers who create fragrances. That is, to write their names on bottles and boxes with fragrances. He argued that perfume, cologne or eau de toilette are works of art that require creativity, inspiration, skill and many more qualities. And those people who create the fragrances always remain unknown, because traditionally, the packages bear the name of the owner of the company.
But if an artist, having created a picture, signs it with his own name, does it mean that a perfumer can do the same?
Mal turned this proposal to perfumers, and they responded with pleasure. And he became something like an editor or producer of this idea. Having extensive experience in creating fragrances, Frederick sometimes helped in their creation, correcting some nuances. This idea was developed and was supported by critics. And the famous critic Chandler Burr called this idea revolutionary for the entire beauty industry.
Inspired by this support, Malle opened the Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle boutique in 2000, where customers could purchase several fragrances from Parisian perfumers.
One of them has a touching story. In the fifties, the creator of fragrances Edmond Roudnitska invented the fragrance Le Parfum de Therese, which he dedicated to his wife Teresa and made it in a single copy. When Mal opened his shop, Teresa Roudnitska came to him to give the formula for this fragrance. So she wanted to perpetuate the memory of her husband, who by that time was no longer there.
What is the idea behind the Frederic Malle brand? Basically, it is expressed in the fact that the author of the fragrance gets complete freedom of action when doing his work. The process goes like this: the author does, Malle slightly edits, if necessary - and the perfume is released. At the same time, there is no deadline, perfumers are not bound by marketing strategies and the need to save on raw materials. They calmly create, taste, make and rework the scent as many times as necessary to achieve the desired flavor shade.
Mal's team employs more than ten people - excellent specialists, many of whom are the heirs of perfume dynasties, which means that they absorbed love for their profession with their mother's milk.
The result is truly stunning fragrances that bear the name of their creators.
In 2015, fans of the brand were saddened by the news that Editions de Frederic Malle was taken over by Estee Lauder. However, in an interview, Mal said that he will work as before and that his concept within Estee Lauder will remain the same. As time has shown, these words turned out to be true - the maesto gives complete freedom of action, and his aromas continue to delight people all over the world.
Personal life
Frederic Malle is a rather modest and silent person, and does not like to talk about his personal life. It is only known that he is married and has a daughter who became a doctor.
