Meeting Jean-Claude Ellena

I first heard about him not long after I have decided to become a perfumer. It was my friend who freshly graduated from ISIPCA, who mentioned him. The way she said his name gave me the impression that we are talking about somebody sacred, very wise, noble and obviously he has my friend already as biggest fan. Limit stalker.

Later when I started perfumery, my colleagues showed particular interest in him, getting slightly obsessive about collecting information of his career. I read an article about him, in which he mentioned how much he doesn't like perfumery being mixed with cuisine - this I considered as a secret message to Olivier Cresp. One of my closest perfume friend directly agreed with Ellena. Based on the article, I was sure he is totally overweening about himself.

So I had more than a negative prejudice towards him when our Chemistry teacher announced that we will visit him in his apartment/laboratory in Cabris. I almost didn't go, I was nervous and was already prepared to have a bad time. I pictured myself listening to my fellows posing their questions with downcast eyes overwhelmed with respect and adoration and listening to his superficial answers full with clichés and not even hidden self-marketing.

I was wrong.

We got to his house in the afternoon, and every one of us still shocked about the beautiful view he has the chance to admire while working, I found myself sitting in his office/salon on comfortable deep brown couches when he invited us to ask any questions we want.
I saw that nobody really dares (?) to ask anything so I went on and on making a mini interview with him about everything I was curious about. He didn't mind. We ended up having private jokes while discussing how he usually creates, how he refuses to admit the power of marketing perfumes in Hermes, how he considers Head Space boring since it does recreate nature simply, and how much more he appreciates an abstract perception of a rose over the simple "imitation" of the rose's scent.

He has on his wall a framed photo of the word "VRAI-MENT" which is the French equivalent for "really" and "truly" put together from VRAI and MENT, separately meaning "true" and "to lie".
This is the idea that marked me the most. He talked us about the difference between the "truth" and your perception about the truth. He emphasized that truth is distorted by how you lived or remembered that moment and this is when art becomes interesting.

For me this has always been the main source of inspiration. That is why a perfume creation based on a past experience will be personal and full of emotions, because it is not simply telling a story but also engaging the audience in the emotional state you were at.

Contrarily to his opinion, I do believe that the key of success for any perfumer is to manage to recall strong childhood memories of customers with their perfume. He considers that in creation there is no past, there is no future, just today. One of the reason why his perfumes are all very modern.

While we talked for about an hour, I got to see that he is confident and assumes the success he has, but he is also objective and not being high and mighty.
I also got to know that he is somebody very intellectual and suddenly I started to feel that I sort of hang on every word of him, just like some absolute fans of his from my class. I realized that I cannot help liking him. A lot.
He was funny, entertaining, very kindly informal and stayed polite and instructive even though he probably heard the question "When do you stop working on a perfume?" about a million times before.

He later on showed us his laboratory, where his assistant - a girl each and every perfumer student is jealous of - is weighting his formulas. He showed us some tricks of the trade, told us about his collection of raw materials, we smelled some of them together.
At the end I was so impressed that I wanted to ask him to bury me under his lab if I die. I didn't. He would refuse... Just as he refuses to take interns to our biggest disappointment.

I kept calling him the "minimalist" but he rejects this label due to the definition of the word. I recently wondered which word can really describe his style. The simplest? The maximalist covered by the illusion of minimalism? Simply the Illusionist?

At the end of our visit, I wanted to stay there for the rest of my life, we had to get back to his office, where he agreed to have photos with us. After the first photo I pretended that I had my eyes closed just to have another one with him. He also dedicated his book to each of us.
I couldn't have been happier to see that for my friends he wrote " To XYZ, with regards, JCE", but to me he wrote "To Viktoria, with my BEST regards, JCE".

Just as anybody else in my class, I fell in love with Jean Claude Ellena, and the idea of stalking him became suddenly a very tempting and logical option.