In all three domains - perfume, makeup, image - you remain detached from any prevailing fashion of the moment. It's true that what I do is not à la mode. But what is fashion truly? It is the moment. The instant. It's how to capture the instant. Fashion today is so much data, it's marketing, so many elements to be manipulated. There are the trendy colours, trendy perfumes, and there are brands which specialize in always pinpointing the next trendy thing and beating the others to it. But I work differently. I work by intuition. But all the colours that I make precede fashion, they are copied and become the fashion. So, I have no need to follow the fashion. Excuse me, that's very pretentious. Suffice to say that I don't make things which are à la mode, I don't make publicity, I don't make perfume, I make something else. I do my job. As I say, I'm just a schoolboy, getting on with it! So, when I make a perfume, it's because I have such a strong feeling that it is the perfume of the moment. It's the same when I make a colour. If my work is often regarded as a point of reference it's perhaps because I am someone who works truly outside of all tendence. I make, quite honestly, what I want to make. Today everything is a product - perfumes, images, etc - and because we feel we need to buy happiness, we are unhappy, because of course it can't be bought. We need to look to the interior of things, of ourselves. 'Unisex' perfumes are the newest product, yet you have always conceived of your perfumes as appropriate to either men or women. For a start, the word 'unisex' is not very pretty. I believe that perfume is, simply, for men and for women who like perfume. In any case, perfume, as it is seen today, is a very recent idea. This separation of perfumes for men and for "For me, beauty is found in immobility, silence and whiteness." women is a socio-cultural product which flourished after WWI. In the nineteenth century perfumes were perfumes. If a man liked to perfume himself with rose or lavender, he used rose or lavender. And it was very elegant. If he was elegant. If he was not elegant in himself, applying rose water would not make him any more elegant. The same for a woman. If the woman is elegant, she perfumes herself with elegance, with precision, with personality. But if she has no elegance, then perfuming herself will not render her so. Perfume is the reflection of what you are yourself. No matter what perfume you apply - even rose - it will be an expression of your personality. For me, perfumery is timeless. It's like in Morocco, where there are perfumes, or essences, and they are worn by women or by men, without segregation. It is a fundamental error to separate men and women. c o n t i n u e