See this: Meet The Perfumers at Harrods

Just a quick note for all perfume fans, Harrods is running an excellent month of events around perfume from now until mid September, including interviews with renowned noses and fragrance house owners. I went to the opening talk with the charming ‘junior nose’ Quentin Bisch from fragrance production house Givaudan and learnt loads. Highlights coming up include Christine Nagel from Jo Malone, Christophe Raynaud from Lancome, Thierry Wasser for Guerlain and Joanna Norman for Chanel. Check the website link below for details and booking.

Meeting the Givaudan team was not just informative, it was also another baby step towards the fragrance industry opening its doors and letting us see inside a world normally kept hidden. Givaudan is one of the biggest fragrance houses in the world, yet you may not have heard of it. It creates and makes many of the perfumes and home product scents, from dish washing liquids to shampoo, you buy. What, you thought it was Giorgio Armani himself who invented the perfume?

What did I learn? Well according to the Givaudan trends people, rhubarb is the next big thing, replacing Oud -which is everywhere now- heirloom fruits such as plum and quince will be key ingredients in fragrances over the next year and it’s all about polarising opinion with fragrance, so the formation of smells that you either love or hate…it’s all about being an individual and loving with a passion what you wear.

This gentle opening up of the industry is only to be encouraged and Harrods is offering us the chance meeting the fragrance inventors themselves here, and it is sure to be fascinating. See here for details