The Different Company: The Story of a Pioneer That Gave Rise to “Niche Perfume”

“All these perfumes have a unique olfactory note. Today, they embody the very quest for olfactory perfection.”
— Jean-Claude Ellena, 2000​

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Essential Information

• Founded: 2000
• Founders: Jean-Claude Ellena (in Japanese) and Thierry de Baschmakoff, designer
• Headquarters: Paris, France (37, Rue Louise Weiss, Paris 75013)​
• Official website: thedifferentcompany.com
• A note on the name: In Japanese, the name is commonly transliterated as “Za Difarento Kanpanī.” It is also sometimes abbreviated to “TDC.”​

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The Founders and the Origins of the Brand

It All Begins in Grasse: The Ellena Family’s Perfume DNA

To tell the story of The Different Company, we must first trace the life of the man who conceived its scents: Jean-Claude Ellena.

Ellena was born in Grasse in southern France in 1947. Grasse is the world capital of the perfume industry, and perfumery ran in the Ellena family’s blood. His father, Peter, was a perfumer at Antoine Chiris. As a child, Ellena spent his days picking jasmine with his grandmother and selling it to perfumers. At sixteen, he joined the same Chiris company as an apprentice and began working night shifts operating the stills. He recalls those days as follows.​

“We made a great deal of oakmoss essential oil. Once I had set up the still, I would lie down on a heap of oakmoss and go to sleep.”
— Jean-Claude Ellena​

In 1968, Ellena became one of the landmark first intake of students at the perfumery school newly established by Givaudan in Geneva, Switzerland. He left Givaudan in 1976 for Lautier in Grasse. First, the fragrance he created there for Van Cleef & Arpels, was the first work to make his name widely known. He went on to release many celebrated perfumes as his career took him to the role of chief perfumer at Givaudan Paris and then to Haarmann & Reimer, now Symrise.​

The legendary perfumer Edmond Roudnitska had a decisive influence on Ellena’s creative philosophy. The creator of Diorissimo and Eau Sauvage, Roudnitska saw perfume as “an art that evokes emotions and stories.” Ellena absorbed that philosophy deeply, later expressing it in his own words.​

“I am not interested in reproducing nature. I want to transform it and create olfactory illusions.”
— Jean-Claude Ellena​

The Rejection and Reversal of a Tea Scent: A Fateful Encounter with Bulgari

Surprisingly, the seeds of The Different Company can be traced back to a proposal rejected for Dior’s Fahrenheit.

In the late 1980s, Ellena discovered that combining the jasmine-scented synthetic molecule Hedione (in Japanese) with violet-scented alpha-ionone (in Japanese) could recreate the scent of tea. This innovative concept came close to winning the competition for Dior’s Fahrenheit, but Dior felt that its commercial prospects were “too uncertain.” Ultimately, Jean-Louis Sieuzac (in Japanese) and Michel Almairac (in Japanese) completed Fahrenheit using a different formula.​

Ellena took his tea scent to other houses, but all declined, finding it “too creative.” Several years later, Bulgari finally took an interest in the concept. Initially, however, it was intended only as an exclusive gift for the jeweler’s most valued clients.

When it was released to the public in response to strong demand from those clients, however, Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert became a major success, opening the way for the tea-fragrance trend of the 1990s.​

Through this project, Ellena met Thierry de Baschmakoff, who designed the flacon, or bottle. In fact, this was Baschmakoff’s first major commission from a leading brand. The success of Bulgari’s tea fragrance convinced both men of one thing: “There is a market for new, original perfumes outside the established houses.” That shared conviction would eventually take shape as a perfume house of their own.​

The Designer’s Background: Baschmakoff’s “Other Grasse”

Baschmakoff, too, was born in Grasse, in 1960, but chose the unusual path of working not on perfume itself but on its “outside”: bottle and packaging design. As he puts it:

“I am probably the only person born in Grasse who works on the outside of perfume rather than what is inside.”
— Thierry de Baschmakoff​

Baschmakoff’s career followed an unconventional course. He studied civil engineering at Arts et Métiers ParisTech, formerly the national school of arts and crafts, but one day abruptly decided, “I will design perfume bottles.” He carved a bottle model in plaster and set out for Paris. In 1985, he established the design agency Aesthete. The Bulgari project described above brought him sudden recognition, and he went on to create a succession of iconic bottles, including Dior Addict, Versace Eros, and Guerlain L’Homme Idéal. To date, he has brought more than 6,000 designed objects into the world.

2000: The Birth of a House with “Difference” in Its Name

Ellena and Baschmakoff put their long-nurtured idea into practice, founding The Different Company in Paris in 2000. The name itself expressed their philosophy of setting themselves radically apart from existing perfume companies. Baschmakoff describes the brand’s thinking as follows.​

“In 2000, what could bring perfume closer to true luxury? Choosing ingredients of the highest quality, regardless of price. At The Different Company, perfumers have complete freedom, even if a formula costs €1,000 per kilogram. Luxury has to be irrational.”
— Thierry de Baschmakoff​

The official website describes the house as “the first independent niche fragrance brand.” In 2000, neither the concept nor the market for “niche perfume” as we know it today existed. In the words of Luc Gabriel, discussed below, it was “a slightly mad project in a market that did not exist.”

Luc Gabriel Joins: A New Chapter

The Different Company reached a turning point in 2004, when Ellena became the exclusive perfumer at Hermès. Luc Gabriel took over the management of the brand at this time. Growing up surrounded by the perfume manufacturing business his mother ran, Gabriel had developed a deep familiarity with the world of scent. He remains the brand’s president and artistic director.

In an interview with WWD Japan, Gabriel explained his philosophy for choosing perfumers.

“A perfumer must be an alchemist, not a chemist. A true perfumer has the ability to draw out emotion through scent and move people.”
— Luc Gabriel​

In an interview with the French perfumers’ association, he also shared this anecdote about finding a common language with perfumers.

“Sometimes, in discussions about a scent, I express things through shapes and colors. I cannot work with someone unless they understand me when I say something like, ‘It is a little too vertical, and too red.’”
— Luc Gabriel​

It was Ellena’s daughter, Céline Ellena, who succeeded him in creating fragrances for The Different Company. Also born in Grasse, Céline studied at the prestigious ISIPCA in Versailles and gained ten years of experience at Haarmann & Reimer before joining the brand in 2004–2005. Many of its popular creations, including Jasmin de Nuit, Sel de Vetiver, Pure eVe, and Sublime Balkiss, are her work.

Gabriel subsequently sought to move away from dependence on a single perfumer and built a collaborative approach involving several talented creators. Internationally renowned perfumers such as Émilie Coppermann (in Japanese), Bertrand Duchaufour (in Japanese), Christine Nagel, and Alexandra Monet have each expanded the house’s expressive range through their own distinctive personalities.

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What the Brand Stands For

The Philosophy of Fragrance Creation: Freedom, Natural Materials, and “No Cost Limits”

The Different Company’s creative philosophy could be summed up as “creation without constraints.” Its official website declares: “No compromise, no cost constraints, for pure pleasure and emotion.”​

In practice, this commitment is expressed in the following principles.

• An exceptionally high proportion of natural fragrance materials: Some perfumes reportedly contain as much as 96% natural ingredients. The signature fragrance Bois d’Iris uses an extremely high concentration of Iris pallida (in Japanese) absolute, a concentrated aromatic extract. Obtaining one liter of the absolute requires forty metric tons of fresh rhizomes and an eight-year process. It is said that seventy kilograms of Iris pallida rhizomes are needed to make 90 ml of Bois d’Iris.
• Complete freedom for perfumers: Rather than constraining perfumers with a brief or specification, the house leaves the creative starting point to the perfumers themselves. Their artistry, rather than marketing, takes precedence.
• Freedom from established concentration categories: Instead of using conventional industry categories such as eau de parfum and eau de toilette, the house freely sets concentrations between 4% and 12% according to the concept behind each formula.​
• Gender-free: Because natural fragrance materials smell different on different skin types, the brand dispenses with gender-based classifications.​

Bottle and Packaging Design

Baschmakoff’s bottle embodies the house’s identity. Its most distinctive feature is the three-tiered cap, a signature symbol of the brand’s “quest for perfection.” The glass is fire-polished, with attention extending to the smooth feel of the bottle in the hand. The principal ingredients are inscribed in enamel on the front.

Equally noteworthy is the adoption of a refillable design from the very beginning. The pump can be removed, and refill bottles made from 100% recyclable aluminum are available. Baschmakoff conceived the bottle as “a luxury object that should not be thrown away.” This sustainability-conscious approach was exceptionally forward-looking when the company was founded in 2000.

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The Fragrance Lineup

The Different Company currently offers around twenty-eight perfumes, sold in roughly 500 stores in more than forty-five countries. Broadly speaking, its collections are organized as follows.

Jean-Claude Ellena’s Foundational Works (2000–2004)

Four creations laid the foundations of the brand. Each highlights Ellena’s “aesthetic of subtraction.”

• Osmanthus (2001): A pioneering fragrance featuring osmanthus, a flower then scarcely known to perfume enthusiasts. It was the brand’s bestseller for seven years.
• Bois d’Iris (2000): An exceptionally lavish use of the Iris pallida discussed above. It is said to have been inspired by the hills of Tuscany.​
• Rose Poivrée (2000/2001): A fragrance awarded the highest rating of five stars by New York Times Magazine perfume critic Chandler Burr. This animalic, fleshy interpretation of rose was also selected for the permanent collection of the Musée de la Parfumerie in Paris. It is regarded as a forerunner of the peppery roses of the twenty-first century.
• Bergamote (2003): A transparent citrus fragrance made with 70% natural bergamot.​

Céline Ellena’s Creations (Around 2005–2011)

While inheriting her father’s “watercolor-like” transparency, she explored a more varied range of expression.

• Jasmin de Nuit (2005): A fragrance capturing the sensuality of jasmine at night.​
• Sel de Vetiver (2006): Awarded five stars by Chandler Burr and the Best Unisex Scent award by BeautynewsNYC.com.​
• Pure eVe (2011) and Sublime Balkiss (2008): Both are popular fragrances among the brand’s top five.​

Collection Excessive: Bertrand Duchaufour’s World of Oud

Around 2011, Gabriel reconsidered the single-perfumer model and actively began inviting outside talent. The first fruit of this approach was Bertrand Duchaufour’s collection centered on oud, or agarwood.​

• Oud Shamash (2011): A sensual dialogue between spice and oud. According to one anecdote, Gabriel commissioned a single fragrance, but Duchaufour submitted two proposals. Both were so good that both were selected.​
• Oud for Love (2012): Made with genuine Laotian oud, it unfolds like a three-act composition, moving from the intoxication of whisky to a garden of tuberose.

L’Esprit Cologne (2012–2017): Émilie Coppermann’s Innovation

A collection of seven or eight works by the female perfumer Émilie Coppermann. Its fresh, paradoxical concept borrows the “spirit,” or esprit, of traditional eau de cologne while possessing the complexity and depth of a parfum.

Representative fragrances include Limon de Cordoza, Tokyo Bloom, Majaïna Sin, and After Midnight. Majaïna Sin, in particular, is said to have been composed while the perfumer experienced vanilla processing and cinnamon distillation firsthand on a vanilla plantation in Madagascar.​

Christine Nagel and Alexandra Monet

• Une Nuit Magnétique: A fragrance that might be called Christine Nagel’s last independent creation. An unexpected meeting of ginger and blueberry creates a mutual attraction within an amberwood magnetic field. Nagel became Hermès’s exclusive perfumer two days after completing it. Perfume critic Luca Turin awarded it five stars.
• Santo Incienso: Alexandra Monet created this fragrance under the inspiration of palo santo, the sacred wood of South America. Its mysterious composition of incense and myrrh seems to return to the etymological roots of perfume, “per fumare,” or “through smoke.”​

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Incidentally…

• Ellena’s palette grows smaller with the years: In a 2023 interview, Ellena disclosed some remarkable figures. Early in his career, he used 1,200 ingredients; he subsequently reduced that number to 400, then 200, and now uses just 110. “It’s frightening, isn’t it?” he said with a laugh.​
• Baschmakoff also created a “fake brand”: In 2016, he collected 300 vintage bottles from the 1930s through the 1960s at flea markets, covered them in colorful rubber balloons, and created a “pretend brand” called J.U.S. What was supposed to be a pure thought experiment attracted crowds of visitors wanting to buy the bottles at an exhibition, and eventually developed into a real brand.​
• Rose Poivrée’s “underwear problem”: Perfume lovers still tell the story of Luca Turin describing its early formula as smelling of “dirty underwear,” owing to the civet, a secretion from the civet cat, that it contained. This “provocative sensuality” was precisely Ellena’s intention, and is also why the fragrance found a place in a museum collection.
• A connection with Japan: L’Esprit Cologne includes Tokyo Bloom, which evokes spring in Japan through basil and dandelion. President Gabriel also places particular importance on the Japanese market, including launching new fragrances there ahead of the rest of the world.

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