"Fragrance is an emotion"

It is an early April afternoon and there is a buzz of excitement inside the beauty halls of Harrods, London's famed department store. A crowd of people have gathered around a perfume counter. Phones held aloft, they jostle for a photograph of French couturier Marc-Antoine Barrois, owner of the eponymous luxury perfume house established in 2009, who has arrived for the unveiling of his latest fragrance offering, the B87.135 Extrait. 

Barrois, who is the creative director of his brand, has risen to become one of the figures in fragrance revered by a new kind of collector: young, knowledgeable CognoScenti, mostly male, who covet fragrances in the same way art lovers seek out a Basquiat or Emin. It’s a growing movement among Gen Zers, with hashtags like #PerfumeTok amassing nearly 6bn views on TikTok (a key forum for fragrance followers, which has helped to drive niche perfume sales). 83% of Gen Z use fragrances regularly, and most rotate them based on mood and occasion, what is known as "scent wardrobing", using fragrance for wellness (for example to lift one’s mood), confidence, and as a means of self-expression.

The artistic nature of Barrois' collection is particularly appealing to new-gen fragrance connoisseurs but he takes the attention in his stride at Harrods as he signs boxes of B87.135 Extrait, which are presented in a green colourway to match the department store's own pantone. This new fragrance – which has a heart of leather with notes of saffron, iris butter and tobacco – has an extra layer of desirability in that it can only be obtained from the British emporium. Spritz it on a mouillette and you are immediately transported inside the store: there’s the hint of leather apparel, the faint whiff of the delicacies laid out in the food halls and notes of lotions and potions in its beauty aisles, which coalesce into a refined fragrance. Barrois and his long-term collaborator, the perfumer Quentin Bisch who is the alchemist of the brand, have somehow bottled Harrods. 

“I saw the store as an Alibaba cavern of luxury,” Barrois says of his vision for the Extrait. “The notes are super refined but they are not layered on top of each other – they appear one after another. It is a journey, which takes you to souvenirs along the way.”

All the fragrances of the house begin with collaboration. Barrois and Bisch first discuss ideas, before Bisch, who is the nose for Givaudan and behind some of the most talked-about fragrances in the world, brings them alive. Barrois, meanwhile, imagines the worlds in which they inhabit. With their latest fragrance they have come full circle in what is the 10th anniversary of the house: Harrods’ B87.135 is a new interpretation of the B683, Barrois’ first, signature scent, which the pair conceived together in 2016.

They met through a chance encounter when Barrois was running his haunt couture atelier, which he established in 2009 having apprenticed with the couturier Dominique Sirop – the right-hand man of Hubert de Givenchy for many years – before being hired by Hermès, where he worked with Jean Paul Gaultier. “Jean Paul taught me a lot – that fragrance is an emotion,” he says of those early days. 

His partnership with Biche has defined parameters. “I don’t like to speak about the elements because that is Quentin’s job. My job is to create imaginary worlds,” he says, citing the development of B683, which is inspired by the asteroid in the novella The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a story that follows a young prince who visits various planets, and addresses themes of loneliness, friendship, love and loss. This is also part of the inspiration for the designer's universe - he is the protagonist and his perfumes are his planets. 

Barrois’s own birthday, 6 October 1983, makes up the numbers of B683. “I wanted to create something super elegant with the nostalgia of the beautiful perfume worn by our grandparents but twisted for the 21st century to make it a young man's perfume,” he says. Although envisaged for a man, from the outset, B683 appealed to both sexes. A close female friend instantly fell in love with the fragrance and encouraged him to launch it. “I learnt that if you produce a perfume as a piece of art, it doesn’t have to be for a man or a woman because basically it is a question of taste and sometimes of culture,” says Barrois. “You like it or you don’t – there is no real gender in fragrance.”

B683 – a woody-leathery, spicy fragrance featuring patchouli, cumin and chilli – laid down the core values of the house. “I told Quentin I wanted to make something very different, that was really well done, so we had to spend as much time as needed to create it, and I have continued to do that throughout the collection. Most houses launch a fragrance every year. I only launch a fragrance when it is ready,” Barrois continues. “And I wanted to ensure our perfume had a trail - because I know fragrances that cost €200, you spray them and 15 minutes later, nothing,” he says. 

His next offering, Ganymede, disrupted the fragrance world, debuting a scent described by some as “metallic” and “futuristic”. “We had to create something with freedom, and our crazy minds came up with a new family of fragrance called Mineral Leathers. The idea was to bring the new notes at the time of Akigalawood with Mandarin and everlasting flower (Immortelle) at the end ,” says Barrois so enthusiastically, he barely draws breath. “It was about defining a new timeless elegance, a new white shirt. It has been a game changer and has been awarded three fragrance awards, including Perfume Extraordinaire in 2020.”

Along with the accolades, his house has garnered a reputation for eco-responsibility based on local production with zero plastic and a collection formulated without colour additives, endocrine disruptors or UV filters. Just as importantly, his fragrances continue to push boundaries. Encelade, launched in 2022, what Barrois describes as a “difficult fragrance to achieve”, melds green woody-leathery fragrance with rhubarb and sandalwood, while Tilia (2024), a floral scent with linden blossom, broom and jasmine, distills a sense of joy. “I said to Quentin, what brings us together is flowers and our love of nature so we should do florals in a new way,” Barrois explains. “When I smelled Tilia for the first time, I said to him, ‘That smells of happiness.’”

That sense of happiness became the inspiration for the fragrance after the birth of Barrois’ twins [he has since had a third child], and Tilia is named after an imaginary star overlooking happy days. “I wanted to talk to people more with my emotions,” Barrois recalls. “The most beautiful and happy moments of your life are those shared with people you love and I wanted to express this.” 

Does he wear Tilia? “No. It is a fragrance which I love but not one I can wear personally. I love to smell it on other people – my husband wears it often,” Barrois smiles. “I always wear B683, my first fragrance because I made it for myself. It is my signature and I love it even more now because when someone wears it my kids will say, ‘Hey you smell like Daddy.’”

He views fragrances as personal signatures. “When I smell someone wearing Givenchy, I follow them in the street because I knew Givenchy and it reminds me of him. It is the same with Nina Ricci perfume – it reminds me of my grandmother,” he says. “I understand young people collect fragrances and some like to change them for different parts of their lives but I’m super happy to wear my signature every day.”

Aldebaran, the perfume Barrois produced last year, sets the tone for the future: it is a modern, luminous and milky tuberose fragrance, which he says is “about hope and optimism.”

“When Quentin first revealed the fragrance to me. I almost didn't want to change it. There was one flower I couldn’t define – it was so radical. I closed my eyes and imagined a world that I expressed at Milan Design Week within an art installation,” Barrois says of the dream-like forest he designed with French artist and architect Antoine Bouillot, which was made of more than 125km kilometres of hanging black ropes that visitors negotiated to reach a bright central clearing with the Aldebaran star above a field of tuberose paper flowers – a design manifesting hope. “For me it is Harry Potter’s Patronus charm – a white light in the night that is calling to you, and saying, 'I am here to protect you'. It is armour in the night,” says Barrois. “Quentin didn’t expect me to like it as it was. We did a bit of fine tuning but it is basically the original idea.”

There are more art interventions planned for the future. His Milan installation has already travelled to ArtVilnius in Lithuania and there is talk it may pop-up elsewhere. Meanwhile, Barrois is putting together a photography exhibition for the house’s 10th anniversary in Arles, France. There is also an impending book including, “35 different photographers” and, on April 16th, Marc-Antoine Barrois will open its first boutique on Wooster Street in New York.
There is a thread underpinning everything Barrois does, which connects haute couture, fragrance and art. “I am firstly an artist who now produces perfume,” he says, “and I consider every perfume a piece of art.”