Early Life
Maurice Roucel was born in 1950 in Cherbourg, in northwestern France. At the age of five, Maurice moved to Paris with both parents and grew up there.
As a child, Maurice was mischievous, always interrupting lessons and making jokes, and reportedly wore long hair like the Beatles until the early 1960s.
As a student, Maurice first became interested in quantum physics, then studied organic chemistry, particularly synthetic substances, and became a specialist in gas chromatography. While sending a résumé to various places to earn a living, on February 19, 1973, Chanel hired Maurice as the laboratory’s head chemist to establish a chromatography laboratory. This was a major turning point for Maurice.
Discovering the Appeal of Perfumery…
Maurice, then only 22 or 23, worked under Chanel’s second in-house perfumer, Henri Robert, who was 74 or 75. Henri Robert gave Maurice complete freedom in the laboratory, where Maurice reportedly replaced various pieces of equipment with the latest models.
At first, Maurice looked down on perfumers. At the time, perfumers were completely unknown and were even called “ghosts.” However, through contact with perfumers, Maurice gradually became captivated by perfumery, went to Chanel’s library, read books and began studying independently, little by little. Maurice’s passion for subjects of interest was so intense that, while researching the properties of scents, Maurice inhaled too much helium gas and suffered an experimental burn that left a scab under the nose for ten years.
Maurice Roucel is said to have learned the art of perfumery independently, but given that Maurice studied under Henri Robert in Chanel’s laboratory, there can be little doubt that Robert provided instruction.
After six years at Chanel, Maurice received an invitation from IFF to become a perfumer. In fact, Henri Robert had enthusiastically introduced Maurice to IFF. From this point, Maurice began channeling that passion for chemistry fully into perfume and developing as a perfumer. The first perfume appears to have been created between 1978 and 1979. Maurice spent six years at IFF.
Maurice then moved to Quest, working there for twelve years, from 1984 to 1996. This was where Maurice met perfumer Christopher Sheldrake, who had been at Quest since 1982. During the Quest years, Maurice worked with Serge Lutens on Iris Silver Mist.
Achievements as a Perfumer
The origins of L’Instant de Guerlain (2003), composed for Guerlain, also date to Maurice’s time at Quest. Guerlain had been absorbed into LVMH, joining the group in 1994, with the Guerlain family withdrawing from management in 1996. Sylvaine Delacourte, marketing director for development and evaluation and involved in the entire creative process for almost every product, was working to preserve the spirit of Guerlain. It was Delacourte who invited Maurice Roucel to become the brand’s first outside perfumer.
She asked me whether I was interested in a women’s fragrance for Guerlain. Fifteen days later, I presented two trials, and one was successful. The idea took Guerlain’s philosophy further. In the 1990s, the perfume industry had undergone a revolution in transparent scents. I proposed reminding people of the Guerlinade. The idea was to use the actual Guerlinade, made even sweeter than in the Samsara era. What I used for this was gardenia.
Maurice Roucel
Then I made Insolence to satisfy customers accustomed to stronger fragrances. Created through two and a half years of trial and error with Sylvaine, this perfume ultimately sold better than L’Instant.
From 1996, Maurice worked for three years at Dragoco, later Symrise. It was during this period that Maurice created Envy (1997) for Gucci.
Envy was a composition Maurice had thought about for thirteen years, since 1984, with hyacinth as its central theme. Gucci’s creative director at the time was Tom Ford (1994–2004).
In 1999, at the age of 49, Maurice left France because Symrise was opening a studio in New York, and has remained at Symrise in New York ever since.
An important aspect of Maurice’s values is the emphasis on always creating a perfume with someone else. Maurice not only regards a scent as something created together with the customers who wear it, but also values creating with a director or with other perfumers.
A perfume is a child. Creating one requires two things: indulging it and educating it. So, for me, a launch is almost the same as a birth. After that, you need to keep it alive for as long as possible.
Maurice Roucel
I dislike creating alone. I think it is ridiculous. A perfume is a baby, so it needs a father and a mother. If two people create it with love, something wonderful can emerge.
Maurice Roucel
By the Way…
• Magnolia is Maurice’s signature. A friend at Laboratoire Monique Rémy introduced Maurice to an essential oil of Michelia longifolia (magnolia) found in China, and Maurice used it for the first time. This happened while Maurice was creating Tocade for Rochas. In the original Tocade, it was used at one part in a thousand; from then on, it became Maurice’s signature scent, added like a secret seasoning to many perfumes.
• Maurice says that the perfume that took the longest to create was Hermès’s 24 Faubourg (1995), at five years, while the quickest was Shalini (2004), at fifteen minutes. Shalini is an Indian-born designer and a friend of Maurice’s.
• At around 36, during a period with little work, Maurice reportedly stopped smoking and took up triathlons. Maurice says that running, swimming and cycling were not interesting individually, but doing the three together was appealing.
• The motto: “Live life and don’t look back.” It is more interesting to think about your future and what to create than about what you or someone else has done in the past.
• Maurice has two children.
• Favorite food: fish, especially sushi.
• Most erotic raw material: oud.
• Favorite scents: those with the sensual warmth found in the Guerlinade, as well as amber, woods and vanilla.
• First perfume purchased: Eau Sauvage, bought at fifteen. Maurice is reportedly very grateful to this perfume, because girls always complimented it when they kissed Maurice.
• Favorite perfumes: Fahrenheit (Dior), Habit Rouge (Guerlain), Z14 (Halston) and Kenzo Air.
• Favorite music: The Doors.
• Most admired perfumers: Michel Almairac, Sophia Grojsman and Alberto Morillas.
