Interview with Chantal Roos
05/29/15 03:38:19 (3 comments)
Last year in Milan we met a new perfume brand from France—Dear Rose. Fragrantica already wrote about the Dear Rose collection after Esxence '14. During the brand founders'—Chantal Roos and her daughter Alexandra—visit to Moscow I had a chance to talk to Chantal [considering legendary Chantal's career in the perfume business, we were talking about now 'eternal' things].
First, a few words about the Dear Rose brand that Chantal Roos created together with and, mainly because of, her daughter Alexandra. The brand's collection started with five fragrances created by Fabrice Pellegrin; later in 2014 there was a sixth scent launched. It was Song for a Queen, that gave start to a new line. This new line is planned to be continued this autumn.
Chantal and Alexandra are working together on their brand's perfume collection, which reflects the different states of mind and different moods of a Woman.
Evgeniya: My first question is evident, I think—after so many years in the perfume business, you've started your own perfume brand just now. Though we see that for several years already so many people are entering the perfume industry. How did it happen that you've finally decided to do that?
Chantal: But it's only because of my daughter, only because of her [Alexandra]. I would never have done it. You see, I entered this business by luck. I was not studying fragrances. I was doing my Master's in English, it's nothing to do with fragrance. Then I was a stewardess just to have fun. Then I was just going around and once somebody approached me and said: "Come and join me, I'm a Marketing Director, we're going to see, we're going to teach you". So it was totally by chance. But I went so passionate with what I was doing! Then I started to work with Yves Saint Laurent—the Master of everything! I worked and learned 15 years with him! He was so nice! The more talent you have, the more educated you are. I had so much work there, when I launched a make-up line ... and then became vice-president of the brand. I never stopped to say ... oh, I will start my own brand. The second thing is that I could not start the brand likeYSL for example. You needs such an amount of money, you need many, many things, but in niche it's totally different. With a smaller amount of money. Of course, you have to invest—nothing happens without it. But you can prove that you can make something beautifully. Because all the money we have, we put into a bottle, we put into the fragrances, we go and see distributors and if they like it, they take it and put it in the stores. It's not the same story ... we don't do TV commercials. We do step by step. Now we have been successful at Harrods in London, next month we are in Fenwick and if Fenwick is successful we go to Liberty. Step by step, take your time. Here [in Russia] it will be the same. Esterk Lux have very good fragrances and they take them only if they like it.
Evgeniya: In any business there is a personal approach that counts.
Chantal: Yes! And it's when Alexandra came, because when YSL was sold last time to L'Oréal I could have retired and then some people said: "I want you to work for me, to help me on my strategy." I'm doing many things: I'm helping the company calledReminiscence, I was helping Diane Von Furstenberg in America ... yes, and when Alexandra came to work with me—she loved it. And she was the one to say: "You should do your own brand in niche, you really have something to demonstrate, because you always worked for others." And sometimes it was not easy ... Tom Ford was not easy to work with, Yves Saint Laurent was fabulous to work with—he was listening when I came and said: "I want to launch the scent." He answered: "Oh, yes, it's a good idea!" He was the one to give the names like Opium, Kouros, Paris and then it was like a discussion we have now.
Yves Saint-Laurent
Evgeniya: I just can't imagine this ... because you are talking about legendary things!
Chantal: But I didn't realize it, as well. Then, forty years ago, I did not realize that I was working on Opium.
Evgeniya: And how do you feel right now, understanding already that you've launched a legend?
Chantal: All the time I was surrounded by young people like you, because I also teach Marketing in a Business School. And when they are saying: "Oh, you are a perfume icon," I just can say that it's ridiculous. You never can consider yourself as a unique person. But sometimes I feel myself like the Eiffel Tower [laughing] ... oh, this is Chantal Roos. But what I like is meeting people who are still wearing the fragrance that I launched, who are still talking about it. For example, L'eau d'Issey with Issey Miake was very complicated! He is Japanese and Japanese fragrances were not that famous, nobody was talking about Japanese fragrances. Kenzo was doing well, but everybody wasn't considering him as Japanese, indeed. Issey Miake doesn't like fragrance, like all the Japanese. I said "My Goddess, what we are going to do?" When I found this idea of L'Eau d'Issey, just because he was always telling me: "I don't like fragrance. Do we have to do a fragrance?" I answered: "You have signed the contract, we have to!" And again: "I don't like fragrance, I think women are very beautiful when they are pure, with the water running on themselves, clean and fresh". He was only talking about water—l'eau. I came back to the bottles designer and said: "Ok, we're going to design a bottle of water. This is the only thing he cares for." And then the designer started to write on the file L'eau Issey Miake and then I looked at it and it wasL'eau d'Issey— l'Odyssée. And this is how it started. Because of him looking for this running water. And it was exciting. But I said to Shiseido, that it will not be a big success, because nobody knows Issey Miake. So, I signed with Jean Paul Gaultier, because he's famous but in fact L'Eau d'Issey was a big success. So, you do your work as well as you can, you do your best but you never know. You can make a flop sometimes. And when you fail you ask yourself what was wrong. You never learn from the success. You do things and it's ok and one day—it doesn't work. I launched something with Tom Ford that was such a huge flop that nobody remembers now. I was thinking about what we've done wrong and that's how you study. So, I never had time to think about my own brand. I always worked for others ... I did fragrances forStella McCartney, I did fragrances for Alexander McQueen, for Kilian ... with Kilian I was more a Marketing director, I did a fragrance for Ermenegildo Zegna, I did fragrance for Boucheron, always something to do for somebody and also, you have family, you have children.
Evgeniya: And did you have enough liberty in doing fragrances for these brands?
Chantal: If I have no liberty, I would leave. It happened for the first time whe YSL was sold in 1987 to an American company, my boss was based in New York and since the success of Opium I had total freedom. He was not even looking. And when they sold to a French business man—Pierre Bergé—I had a new boss based in Paris, who wanted to look at everything. I stayed two years and then I left for Shiseido. Because you need freedom, if there is somebody who says "no-no-no, it's like this, you should do it here with the red stripes." I can't work like this. I always was very strict.
Evgeniya: And how do you choose a perfumer for your fragrances? How did you choose a perfumer to work on Opium, for example and also, how did you choose Fabrice Pellegrin to work on the Dear Rose line?
Chantal: It's interesting. For the first one, Opium, I didn't know anything. I started with the company where M. Saint Laurent liked very much the president, who was a friend of his and I said ok, why not make a perfume, so, I started with them. And the perfumer—I want to work with somebody who understands my story. I'm not a nose. I refuse to be a nose, I always refuse to take the lessons of smell. Why? Because I always want to stay like a customer. If I tell the story of A Capella—the morning, the garden, the rosebuds ... I need to explain with my words. This lady, this freshness, still little bit of wetness ... I have to explain with my words. And some perfumers I have no connection with. If you din't understand me, it doesn't work, as it looks like: what's this dew, what's she saying? And as soon as we have a connection, we discuss, and if the nose went in a wrong way I say something like, no ... it's something for the evening, I want another image. I remember with L'Eau d'Issey ... it was a second perfumer who worked with it. And I told her, I was talking about purity, transparency, those type of fairy-Japanese women and your woman, the one that I smell, is dressed in leather, wearing high heels—it's not my woman. You need this connection with a perfumer. They have to understand you, you have to understand them and this is the only way he/she enters your story. If he/she understands you, it's the right one. And if he is a right one, you try to keep him.
Evgeniya: So, once and again it's a personal approach, not practical or logical...
Chantal: Yes, it's personal. I don't know how the others are doing. And I never tes t... I never tested for Opium, I never tested for Kouros or anything else. One day an American told Yves Saint Laurent that we should test a scent for the American market, but Yves said to me: "Every time I do a fashion show, do I test my clothes? No, we don't test it." Women want to be surprised. They don't want expected things. This is the problem of perfumery today. Everything smells the same. If you have a big success like J'Adore or like Coco Mademoiselle, then you have thirty years of floral-fruity ahead, more or less like J'Adore or Coco Mademoiselle. And they don't put enough money in the bottle. Because I know how they work. I will not name anybody, because I don't care, but in general ... I'm talking of the big groups, especially of the L'Oréal, more than anybody. They say ok, we're going to launch a perfume. We are going to take a celebrity—what is the price of this celebrity? One million, ok. Then we have to do a TV commercial ... one million again and when time comes to say how much do you have for the product: two euros. Oh, that's nice, let's take one for the bottle and one for the juice. That's how they do. And it all happened because of two things: first of all, in 70s-80s, when big companies were still launching big perfumes, they were not in huge groups like LVMH, Coty, Lauder ... thank God Chanel is still separate. And all these companies are on the stock list. They all have to announce numbers up. Those big groups are looking for a return on money, so you have to earn constantly, and push, and launch, and launch ... spend millions in TV. And then you have distribution: not so much in Russia, but in Europe there is a very developed market. You have big chains like Sephora, Marionnaud, Douglas, etc. In France it represents 83% of distribution, that is in hands of the huge groups, then you have 10% for department stores and only 3% of independent perfumeries; the rest is a little bit of duty free. So we have big chains that are also in big groups and they also need to announce numbers up. So, they want more and more, they want small sizes, they want to discount 20%, they want coffrets etc.. It's like a bazaar, they don't pay sales girls, who don't have good salaries and when they are changing constantly—they don't care. They don't know how to talk about fragrances. Even if you train them ... six months after, they leave for somewhere else. There is no faithfulness, you see. They have to sell, they don't listen to the customers. If, for example, I come and say: "You know, I like oriental perfume, then, I like perfume from fashion designer"... do you think she proposes me Opium that corresponds totally to what I mentioned? No, she says: "You know, we have something new."
Evgeniya: Yes, everyone's gone crazy about novelties. We talked about it with my colleagues during Esxence—last year's perfume, it's old already. And as well, it makes brands launch new products all the time.
Chantal: You see, when you launch something and you are a big name like Dior,YSL, Lancôme, etc. you have the whole world, more or less, 20,000 points of sales. When you arrive with something new and you are as big as Dior, each point of sale has an obligation to take a minimum number of pieces. Because Dior is very important in the stores. If I come with my brand—nobody would take me. Let's suppose they take, each store, 100 pieces. Multiply by the price. So, just with the placement—they have a huge amount of money. So, they make an advertisemen, sampling, girls spraying ... Then you make a reorder, you are successful, you have numbers up, but next year, if the juice is not that good, they can not continue with spending that same amount of money on support, so they reduce the investment and sales also reduce. And they have to come with something else. And this is an awful game, because they cannot stop.
Evgeniya: When you were talking about girls spraying a perfume which is in promotion, I remembered recently I was sprayed Black Opium in GUM [biggest department store in Moscow] and I still do not understand if they really think that this sticky reincarnation would become admired by those who know the original Opium (and if they call it Opium, they considered, obviously, to use the beloved name as a hook)? That is what really hurts.
Chantal: You put your fingers on something very important—respect for the customers. In any field—perfumery, fashion, alcohol—you can not cheat your customers for too long. This is the reason for the success of niche perfumery. In France three years ago only 3% of perfumes cost more than 100 euro, today it's already 10% and it's only due to niche perfumery, because one by one people start to realize that maybe it's better to take something more costly, to spray less, but to get good quality. People are not stupid. Sometimes, of course, people don't have money for expensive perfumes, but in this case there are some very nice brands like Yves Rocher who put more money into the bottle than these big groups we've just named.
Evgeniya: Definitely, they don't pretend to be luxury ...
Chantal: But they put money inside. So, the most important thing is: respect your customers. And I think now L'Oréal starts to understand this. Recent La vie est Belle is much better quality that the ones launched before. You know, Estée Lauder just purchased Frederic Malle and Le Labo, so, they start thinking: aha, with these popular brands we'll keep people only if we continue the same way.
Evgeniya: Yes, you can't imagine how worried people are—for example, Fragrantica readers, perfume lovers—by this fact, as they think that things will be changed.
Chantal: Voilà ... same thing with Puig that purchased L'Artisan Parfumeur andPenhaligon's. So, if big companies understand now that something is happening there, they have to work differently.
Evgeniya: I hope so.
Chantal: Me too, but there is a movement. And we are just at the beginning of it. Small brands help it, there is a movement definitely.
Evgeniya: So, you think niche will push the luxury segment to the right rail?
Chantal: Yes, but we have to remain niche, me, personally, with my brand I will never go to those big chains ... never. I don't want to be sold like a pack of buttons. I remember Hermès family, Jean Louis Dumas Hermès who was the iconic president of Hermès (we were very close) and one day he said to me: "You know, Chantal, I'm very sorry to tell you that but I don't like your business. I have Hermès fragrances but I don't like them. And I'd prefer not to do it." I asked why and he answered: "Hermès always does Perfection if we can, we are trying always the best quality, the stores ... we never do rebates. And when I go and see the perfumery that has my coffrets inside and it's written '-30%' and it's dirty, it's disgusting. I would like to close it everywhere, but I can't, it's too late. I have the distribution contracts signed. So, I don't like your business, it's hurting my image."
Evgeniya: Here, with niche, with this narrow distribution you are fortunate to somehow control it.
Alexandra and Chantal Roos
Chantal: Yes, that's why we take our time and we choose the distributors. You have to have good partnerships and you have to trust your partner, otherwise it could kill your brand. If the distributor decides to put your brand everywhere, to put it a discount price... I will never know.
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