Interview: Founder and Creative Director Azzi Glasser
THE WICK: What does a typical Monday look like for you?
Azzi Glasser: I usually get up around 6am have breakfast with my boys and Jagger my dog. Run through the to-do list and diary with Bradley, my brilliant assistant. I generally always like to keep space on a Monday morning to dream up some new accords, inspired by a key memory from the weekend. We have a product design and development meeting late morning, followed by the bespoke client meeting, usually in the afternoon. I like to then immerse in a hot yoga session to end my day, regardless of the weather. Monday’s always excite me as I feel that exhilarating leap into having 5 days ahead of me, which makes it less overwhelming.
TW: In 2016, you founded the multi-award-winning bespoke fragrance company, ‘The Perfumer’s Story’. What inspired you to create your fragrance brand, and what gap were you trying to fill?
AG:
A famous actor friend of mine pushed me to take the leap. We’ve worked together on Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows & The Lone Ranger. He’s a huge enthusiast of my fragrances and even helped me conceptualise the aesthetic of my brand, including my bespoke multi-faceted flacons with references to an old rum bottle, which are then housed in their own book box, inspired by each of the stories they tell.
Having worked in the perfume industry for 30 years, I didn’t want to create yet another perfume coming off the conveyor belt where they all look the same and smell the same following the industry ’norm’ of Fragrance families – Are you a fruity floral sweet person’ or perfumes drenched in over marketed ingredients such as Oud and Vanilla.
I created The Perfumer’s Story, which is a fringe of 1e Perfumes, to match your individual persona and represent who you are in the same way I create perfumes for the character and style of the actor’s roles. When you find your go-to fragrance, it’s game over! It’s an awakening act of self-discovery. The perfume industry is based on briefs that pigeonhole people into following marketing trends based on ingredients with a one-size-fits-all approach. I never found this relevant when I created my first fragrance, even 25 years ago with Agent Provocateur. People desire customisation and perfumes that match their DNA, honour their self-expression and tell their story.
TW: You have worked with clients including Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Stephen Fry, Cindy Crawford, among others, to develop personal scents for them, but also character fragrances that help transform them into their roles or add a scent dimension to their music. How do you translate a living persona, a fictional role, or a piece of music into a scent?
AG: Translating an olfactive identity comes down to being genuinely interested in people; their attributes, characteristics, memories, personalities, lifestyles, beliefs, values, the settings and era they love or wish to relive. Creating a character perfume is an art form that requires complete understanding of my client’s role, identity and the character, style and emotions they want to portray onset or on stage.
TW: You once crafted a scent of pus, blood, and medieval sickroom fumes so Jude Law could fully inhabit Henry VIII in Firebrand. What’s been the most challenging scent you have crafted?
AG: Viscerally, Henry VIII was challenging to create and I actually had to create it in the garden, otherwise it would have lingered through the house. But the most challenging scent would have to be the Old Books collaboration for Johnny Depp’s art exhibition, ‘A Bunch of Stuff’. The Old Books fragrance is beloved by the actors and I had to do it justice in a candle and a room spray – When you wear the Eau de Parfum, it leaves this expensive mysterious trail but when I tested it in a candle, it barely filled the room and I knew I had my work cut out for me. Many iterations later, it was beyond where I envisaged it, giving off notes of Old Books in a library with a roaring fire adding the smoked wood note and a touch of Frankincense and Myrrh. Ready to go and Johnny adores it.
“When you find your go-to fragrance it’s game over! It’s an awakening act of self-discovery.”
