Dinner-party conversations with a legendary perfumer go a little something like this... food for thought, no? Figured we'd share:

“With fragrance, you do what you do in life. People do what they want. What do you do with boyfriends, you keep them for two months and then you sort of dump them and then you go to another one for two months? [Laughs] There are some incredibly faithful people that will keep the same fragrance all their lives and you can recognize them by that. There are people that are sort of all about the moment, and go from one fragrance to another. There are people that have fragrance wardrobes, there are people who will have as much of one fragrance as possible and then go to another. It depends. Fragrances are very much matching each person's physiology, and so people's attitude with fragrance is very much linked to their inner self. There's a link between how you wear fragrance and how you deal with things in your life. I'm extremely committed as a person, I’m extremely obsessive…but I'm not a person to say what is right or wrong, because otherwise I would be a complete fascist.”

Frédéric Malle at a dinner in his honor, hosted by Mark Lee and Barneys New York on December 6th, 2012. Photo courtesy of Billy Farrell Agency.