“I have respected Terre and it is still Terre, but with other balancesexplains the perfumer as she compares her approach to her new work with that of some of the most relevant sculptors in France. “It was like taking a photograph from several different angles. I am very interested in sculpture, and during the process I read several things I found them fascinating. For example, Camille Claudel enlarged the hands and feet of her works to make them more natural, more human, and sometimes this also happens with perfumes”, she details.
Born in Switzerland to an Italian mother, disciplined by geography, but Mediterranean by conviction, Christine Nagel came to the world of perfumery thanks to chemistry, which she studied competently until, in 1997, she moved to Paris to undertake one of the most celebrated careers in the history of perfumery, with global successes such as Her by Narciso Rodríguez or Miss Dior Chérie by Dior. “If I knew the recipe for success, of course I would use it, but it would also be a bit boring. Perfumes are very emotional and I know that if I put all my emotions into a perfume, at some point I will also be able to stir up someone else’s,” she says. She arrived at Hermès, where she currently works as director of olfactory creation and heritage, in 2014 at the hands of the legendary Jean-Claude Ellena, whom she replaced in the position in 2016.
Since then, as Caroline Fulconis herself declared, at that time president of Hermès Parfums, the house of traditional luxury par excellence “started a new path”. And expectations did not take long to materialize. That same year, Eau de Rhubarbe Écarlate was released, his first creation for the house, which was followed by Twilly d’Hermès, Eau des Merveilles Bleue, Ombre des Merveilles, Twilly Eau Poivrée and Un Jardin sur la Lagune, among many others.
Terre, the work of Ellena, is, however, the one that occupies the center of her altar, hence the totally organic approach, according to her own words. “At Hermès I have never been required to work on a particular theme. Everything is based on my wishes, on a personal encounter, whatever the moment. At the beginning of 2021, I started thinking about Terre and realized that I really wanted to give it a very different tone. I tried, but without success. Then the idea of the frozen land came to me, which was a perfect fit.” Nagel says that her first relationship with Terre d’Hermès Eau Givrée arose after a “surprising” encounter with an ingredient.
“One day I had a wonderful encounter with the juniper berry,” he says. “It is a very strong material, but it also meant a challenge. The frozen earth is an element that I find wonderfully poetic, very graphic, and can also be very beautiful. I thought that perhaps I could find notes of ice while projecting something hot, thus finding a harmony. I wanted to challenge the idea that freshness is synonymous with a certain lightness,” she continues. “In the end, in any work the material is the key, whether it is a craft in leather, silk or a perfume”, he highlights.