Girls love Beyoncéand just about everyone loves Byredo (how many examples do we need?). It's perfume in the vein of Lays Potato Chips (unless they're baked): Betchya can't have just one. So, in honor of Ben Gorham's runaway success, we travel down memory lane to a time when French journalist Lili Barbery-Coulon could barely give him the time of day. In her own words:

'There’s this new guy, Ben Gorham who started Byredo. It’s funny because when he started the brand, I wasn’t really supportive. He likes to say I was a real bitch to him at the beginning because I was very sick of all these new perfume brands that were all saying, 'We try to do something different,' and I had met a few of them in a row, and Ben was just one in this row. So I was very arrogant and very skeptical, and I wasn’t very nice to him. I just said, 'Yeah, yeah. So why are you doing perfume? You. Where do you come from?' And he said, 'Well, I’ve never done anything with perfume, I don’t know anything about perfume. I just try to do very good briefs and bring them to perfumers,' and I was like, ‘Yeah yeah yeah yeah…' And then he invited me stop in to see the opening of the shop. At the beginning I said no, because I felt, 'A shop in Stockholm? There’s no way I’d be allowed to talk about it in French Vogue.' But he convinced me to come, and I went there, and I was very surprised. I realized there was a real vision behind it, and it did look really good...And so I changed my mind and then I started talking about his perfumes. And I think that the perfume he made with M/M is amazing. It’s very refreshing to see people who dare, doing some things, some perfumes, that do not smell that good. You know, it’s not about smelling good, or smelling fresh, it’s about smelling different. And I appreciate that.”

Got a favorite flavor? Please dish in the comments.