Monsieur Lutens, we are in an environment of your own design, surrounded by colours and perfumes of your own design. What, for you, is the relationship between all these things? Doubt. When I build a house, a decor, or when I create a perfume or colour, it's really a form of approximation and of doubt. I work much more in the juxtaposition of doubts, if you like, than in affirmations. There is a lot of intuition, divining, lots of 'perhaps'. And at the end, all these 'perhaps' "I work in the juxtaposition of doubts." become an affirmation. I am not an architect. I don't draw theoretical houses on paper. I design houses in which I am going to drink, move around, live. For me, a house is a person. Perfume is a person, the book is a person, images are people, colours are a person. It is the colours themselves which explain how they are going to come into being. Same for the perfumes. It is they who advance with me. It's very strange. In 1982, having worked with Shiseido for two years, you were invited to do perfume. As a strong visually-oriented person, how did you go about creating with odours? I'm still learning! When I say that I am an autodidact, I mean to say that I still go to school everyday. I'm a professional schoolboy, that's me! Each day of my life I learn something. Especially in perfumery, this style of perfumery which is very particular in terms of the olfactory elements being used. For many years you have lived in the medina of Marrakech. Without Morocco... There would be no perfume! Morocco was no accident. I believe very much in destiny, the force of destiny. I believe that certain forces attract some things and reject others. We escape very little of our destiny, and I think that, for me, perfume was a preordained encounter. From the moment I began to make perfume, it came quite naturally. Just like when I began to do makeup, I knew how to do makeup. And the moment I began to do photography, I knew how to take photographs. c o n t i n u e