Richard E Grant Jack Perfume Live Interview

We rolled out the red carpet on Love At First Scent yesterday to welcome none other than Richard E Grant, the Academy Award-nominated actor who just happens to be the founder of a highly-regarded perfume brand: Jack Perfume. We talked about his latest release, Richmond, as well as what it’s been to like to work with a single perfumer, Alienor Massenet, on the entire Jack range. And of course, we had to bring in some subjects related to film, from the question of who is the best-smelling actor he’s ever encountered and how his experience of working with some of the world’s top directors has informed his ‘creative director’ role in the scent world. Unfortunately, the Internet fairies weren’t on our side and we did have a few technical hitches, but they weren’t major, and I don’t think they’ll prevent you from enjoying the interview. To watch the episode, please click on this link: Richard E Grant Jack Perfume interview.

My prep for the broadcast gave me a very welcome reason to revisit With Nails, Grant’s superb ‘film diary’ autobiography published in the mid 1990s. I re-read my favourite chapters in the hope of finding some juicy olfactory descriptions. There was no shortage of them, to be sure. But what I was most struck by was how the essence of Grant’s prose style can be detected in Jack’s scent output. His writing displays a matter-of-fact, unfussy quality, frequently punctuated by a wholly unexpected, eccentric turn of phrase. And it’s this very same mix of the streamlined with the quirky that is the most praiseworthy attribute of his fragrance work.

It’s also fascinating that this effect has been achieved in collaboration with Alienor Massenet. I confess that, in the past, I’ve found her style difficult to engage with; to my nose, it’s been too minimalist for its own good. But when it flashes with the sparkiness that Grant brings to proceedings, it comes into its own. If they were creating men’s jackets, she’d be the one making sure the tailoring was subtly – yet slavishly – accurate, and he’d be the one insisting on using a dazzling, multi-coloured piece of silk for the lining. Together, they’d produce something quietly wonderful. Long may their partnership continue.

Persolaise

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