L’Orchestre Parfum: Hearing Fragrance, Smelling Music

“I am a perfumer and a musician. My most powerful memories have been shaped by the dialogue between these two arts: those irreplaceable moments when music and perfume create perfect harmony. I founded L’Orchestre Parfum to revive and share that emotion. Wear a fragrance and listen to a perfume: Wear a song, listen to a perfume.”
— Pierre Guguen, founder

Essential Information
The Founder and the Origins of the Brand
The Brand’s Commitments
The Fragrance Lineup
Incidentally…

Essential Information

Brand name: L’Orchestre Parfum
Known in Japanese as “Ōkesutora Parufamu”; the French pronunciation is rendered “Rorukesutoru Parufamu.” The name means “the perfume orchestra” in French.
Established: 2017
Founder: Pierre Guguen
Co-founder: Matthieu Roustan
Based in: Paris, France
Official website: https://lorchestreparfum.com
Brand concept: “The alchemy of music and perfume” (L’alchimie musique-parfum). A French niche perfume house creating “musical fragrances” that bring scent and music together

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

Childhood: His Father’s Eau Sauvage and an Olfactory Awakening

Pierre Guguen first encountered perfume when he was around 12 or 13. Before going out with friends, he discovered his father’s bottle of Dior Eau Sauvage in the bathroom and impulsively sprayed it on generously. Its fresh citrus and green scent certainly stirred him, but it was far too grown-up for the boy.

“At that moment, I sensed that this ‘invisible outfit’ could give me a little sensuality and individuality. But I soon understood that choosing a perfume is not something to take lightly. As with your style of dress, you have to feel a genuine connection to yourself.”
— Pierre Guguen

This episode may seem minor, but it was a formative experience that awakened Pierre’s sensitivity to the invisible art of scent.

Student Years: A Passion for Music and the Study of Marketing

Pierre attended TBS Education, formerly Toulouse Business School or ESC Toulouse, a grande école in Toulouse in southern France, completing a master’s program in marketing between 2007 and 2010. He also studied at its Barcelona campus. Together with classmate Axelle Bourjal, who would later work in development for the house, he wrote a graduation thesis on “Polysensoriality in the retail environment.” Its theme anticipated the concept of the future brand.

During his student years in Paris, Pierre played in several bands and discovered the pleasure of performing onstage. Music was as important a pillar of his life as his marketing studies.

Barcelona: A City Where Two Passions Met

After graduating, Pierre moved to Barcelona and became an international product manager at the major Spanish fragrance company Puig. He worked on the perfume division of Comme des Garçons (in Japanese), contributing to fragrances such as Wonderwood and Amazingreen. Daily contact with some of the industry’s leading creators and perfumers drew him ever deeper into the world of scent.

At night, however, Pierre returned to his life as a musician. In Barcelona, he formed a band called Flying Moussaka Eaters and maintained an energetic schedule of live performances. Yet French lyrics were not easily understood by Spanish audiences. That language barrier would spark an idea.

“I wanted to give the people coming to our shows more emotion, perhaps even an entirely new experience. So I went to a perfumer friend and asked, ‘Could you create the scent of a song?’”
— Pierre Guguen

Around 2011, while at Puig, Pierre joined a scented museum tour organized by the olfactory art director of Comme des Garçons. He was struck by how combining different artistic materials could intensify an experience. This revelation led him to bring scent into his own band’s performances.

Pierre asked his perfumer friend Elisa Tzedakis to create a fragrance inspired by one of the band’s songs. At the next concert, the audience experienced it on mouillettes, or scent strips, while the band played. The response went far beyond his expectations.

“People told us, ‘We love this new experience.’ At that moment, I became convinced that the synergy between perfume and music was real and needed to be explored more deeply.”
— Pierre Guguen

Audience members from around the world who could not understand the French lyrics reportedly wrote to describe emotions that matched the song’s meaning exactly after smelling the fragrance while listening. Pierre was thrilled by the potential of this approach to communicate emotion across language barriers.

Returning to Paris: Fragrance Developer by Day, Artist by Night

Pierre subsequently returned to Paris to work in marketing and fragrance development at L’Oréal. His work included products such as Kérastase Elixir Ultime, and over his career he participated in fragrance development for major names including Carolina Herrera, during his Puig years, and Viktor & Rolf.

This double life, working as a fragrance marketer for a major group by day and traveling between Paris and Barcelona for multisensory band performances by night, gradually led to a single conviction. After several years of experimental concerts, Pierre decided to bring the concept to a wider world.

“The story began 14 years ago in Barcelona. I was living a double life: creating new Comme des Garçons perfumes at Puig by day and playing music with my band, Flying Moussaka Eaters, by night. The two worlds were irresistibly drawn to one another until, one day, I decided to translate one of our songs into perfume and let people smell it and hear it onstage.”
— Pierre Guguen, on the opening of the first Paris boutique

The Birth of L’Orchestre Parfum: Paris in the Winter of 2017

After roughly ten years in the fragrance industry, Pierre finally decided to strike out on his own. He received support from Positive Planet France, the French member organization of Youth Business International, to refine his business plan, develop his skills, and obtain financial assistance.

According to Toulouse Business School’s alumni records, Pierre Guguen, a 2010 graduate, founded L’Orchestre Parfum in 2017. The brand came to life at a concert in Paris one winter evening that year. Guests witnessed an entirely new multisensory event, experiencing fragrances while hearing live music and even watching live drawing at the same time.

The first five fragrances were composed by Anne-Sophie Behaghel and Amélie Bourgeois of Flair Paris: Flamenco Néroli, Rose Trombone, Thé Darbouka, Encens Asakusa, and Cuir Kora. It was a debut centered on instruments and musical genres from around the world.

Today, the house brings together accomplished figures including co-founder Matthieu Roustan, Axelle Bourjal, formerly of LVMH, Sylvaine Falque, with more than 20 years at Estée Lauder, and Olivier Raulin, former CFO of Nocibé/Douglas and a leader of Adopt Parfums. It has grown into a house present in around 30 countries.

The Brand’s Commitments

In Search of “the Smell of Music”: A Pilgrimage to Instrument Workshops

Creation at L’Orchestre Parfum begins with a process fundamentally different from that of a conventional perfume brand. Pierre first asked: “What does music smell like? (Quelle est l’odeur de la musique ?)”

In search of an answer, he visited more than ten instrument makers’ workshops, or luthiers’ ateliers, around the world, from Paris to Essaouira in Morocco. The cedarwood scent of a flamenco guitar, the metallic smell of a trombone’s brass, the leather texture of the West African kora: he literally smelled these “musical materials” and reportedly brought back bags filled with fragments of instruments.

Perfumers combine the essence of these instrument materials with traditional fragrance ingredients such as neroli, rose, spices, and incense to create musical fragrances. The finished perfumes are then given to virtuoso musicians from around the world, who compose and perform an original piece with complete freedom.

Exploring Synesthesia

At the heart of the brand is an exploration of synesthesia, the perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sense automatically evokes another. Every bottle carries a QR code that can be scanned to hear the music composed for that fragrance on Spotify or the brand’s website.

“Music and perfume both emerge from the hands of an artist, live briefly in the air, and then disappear. In their wake, they leave emotion or revive a memory. They are two arts with the same mode of existence, governed by the same laws.”
— From the official L’Orchestre Parfum website

This approach is more than branding; it is rooted in the experiences Pierre himself tested through live performance. In an interview with IRK Magazine, he described L’Orchestre Parfum as “not a perfume brand, but a fragrance band.”

Materials and Sustainability

All L’Orchestre Parfum fragrances are designed in Paris and made in Grasse in southern France. Their principal features are as follows.

Alcohol: 100% natural alcohol derived from French sugar beets
Ingredients: Every formula is 100% vegan, with more than 80% natural and plant-derived ingredients
Bottles: Each is lacquered by hand by French craftspeople. The mirror finish, reminiscent of the varnish of a grand piano, creates a distinctive symphony between light and liquid
Packaging: FSC-certified outer boxes guarantee sustainable forest management

Working Toward Cultural Democratization

L’Orchestre Parfum supports the Philharmonie de Paris’s Démos program. Founded in 2010, this social and educational project lends instruments for three years to children aged seven to twelve who have limited opportunities to encounter classical music for economic or geographical reasons, and gives them experience playing in an orchestra. More than 12,000 children across France have participated.

Pierre says, “I believe learning music can change a life,” and sees a contribution to society through “cultural democratization” for young people as a vital mission for the brand.

The Fragrance Lineup

The Structure of the Collection

Each L’Orchestre Parfum fragrance begins with a particular instrument and musical genre, and with memories of the place where that genre lives. As of February 2026, 14 fragrances had been released, each crediting both a perfumer and a musician.

The following are representative works and their main features.

Fragrance	Year introduced	Instrument / genre	Perfumer	Musician
Flamenco Néroli	2017	Flamenco guitar	A-S. Behaghel	Mathias Berchadsky
Rose Trombone	2017	Trombone / jazz	A-S. Behaghel	Nicolas Benedetti
Thé Darbouka	2017	Darbouka / Arabic music	A. Bourgeois	Nicolas Leroy
Encens Asakusa	2017	Koto / Japan	A. Bourgeois & A-S. Behaghel	Fumie Hihara
Cuir Kora	2017	Kora / West Africa	A. Bourgeois & A-S. Behaghel	Cheikh Diallo
Piano Santal	2019	Piano / jazz	Jean Jacques	Édouard Ferlet
Electro Limonade	2020	Turntables / house	Nathalie Feisthauer	NIID
Bouquet Encore	2020	Turntables / techno	P-C. Guéros	POPOF with Animal & Me
Ambre Cello	2021	Cello	P-C. Guéros	J. Martínez Campos & Gautier Capuçon
Vetiver Overdrive	2022	Blues guitar	A. Bourgeois & A-S. Behaghel	Justin Johnson
Liqueur BPM	2023	Lo-fi / hip-hop	P-C. Guéros	Zag Erlat
Mono Cachemire	2024	Lo-fi kick	Nathalie Feisthauer	──
Bouquet Encore Latte	2025	Handpan	P-C. Guéros	Mumi

Highlights of Signature Fragrances

Piano Santal was released in 2019, with music by jazz pianist Édouard Ferlet. Created by perfumer Jean Jacques, this “white dream” of milky sandalwood, cedarwood, and musk is said to evoke “the feeling of being inside a majestic cathedral.” Pierre himself described it as a fragrance he “could not put down for months.”

Ambre Cello is a special creation whose musical interpretation was entrusted to Gautier Capuçon, one of the leading cellists of the twenty-first century. It began with a chance encounter: Pierre met Capuçon on his way back from testing an Ambre Cello prototype, and the two talked about the fragrance. The brightness of bergamot, the sweetness of tonka and vanilla, and the dark, deep layers of myrrh and benzoin recall the contrast between the cello’s high and low registers.

Bouquet Encore Latte is the latest release of 2025, positioned as a sequel to Bouquet Encore, the popular fragrance depicting a night of techno. Barcelona, 6:46 a.m.: amid the afterglow of a night spent dancing, the moment of sinking into a cloudlike bed is captured in a milky accord of almond milk, tonka, vanilla, and jasmine.

Sizes and Formats

The fragrances are generally available as 100 ml eaux de parfum for around €160, with a portable 15 ml size called a “Roadie,” after the crew who support a touring band. The sample kit for trying the entire collection is named La Répétition, French for “rehearsal.”

The First Paris Boutique: Parfumerie Audiophile

In November 2025, L’Orchestre Parfum opened its first directly operated store, Parfumerie Audiophile, at 21 rue du Bourg Tibourg in the Marais district of Paris.

The space is inspired by the jazz kissa Pierre encountered on his travels in Japan: uniquely Japanese cultural spaces, born in the 1950s, where music is experienced through high-fidelity audio. Pierre and co-founder Matthieu Roustan developed the interior with design studio U Interiors. Dark wood, indirect lighting, concrete, vinyl turntables, and a high-end audiophile sound system recreate the intimate, tranquil atmosphere of a jazz café.

“This is less about selling than about a performance.”
— Pierre Guguen

Explaining the choice of the Marais, Pierre describes it as “lively, cultural, and cosmopolitan, with people passing through who are open to this kind of experience.” Visitors bring vinyl records or share travel memories and musical anecdotes, and a place for exchange beyond the act of buying has reportedly emerged naturally.

Incidentally…

The band’s name: Pierre’s band in Barcelona was called Flying Moussaka Eaters. Moussaka is a traditional layered aubergine dish from Greece and the Middle East, and the humorous name offers a glimpse of his personality.
A childhood dream: As a child, he wanted to be John Connor from Terminator 2.
Favorite color: Blue-grey.
Dogs or cats? Cats.
His specialty in the kitchen: Risotto ticinese, from Ticino, the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland.
The sample kit’s name, La Répétition, comes from the musical term for rehearsal. The portable Roadie size takes its name from the crew who support a band on tour. A love of music permeates even these small details.