Fashionistas and fashionistas all over the world know the name of Pierre Frederic Serge Louis Jacques Malle - he makes great flavors for every occasion that a person has in his life: for a celebration, business meeting or youth party, as well as for a normal working day.
Moreover, the combination of smells in his perfume and eau de toilette is so unusual that connoisseurs are amazed - how can one combine at first glance incompatible things in such a harmonious way? The Mal brand cannot boast a long history of its existence, but it is already widely known throughout the world.
Biography
Frederick Mal, founder of his own brand, was born in the western suburbs of Paris under the name Boulogne-Billancourt. His whole family was associated with the perfume industry, but no one dared to open to create their own brand. His grandfather was one of the founders of the Christian Dior brand, but then retired, and his mother worked for Dior as development director. My father was associated with the banking business, he was mainly engaged in investments. He helped Frederick at the beginning of the journey, and was also a producer for his second son, Louis Mal, the famous director.
An interesting fact: the Mal family lived in an apartment that was once occupied by the famous perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain.
After graduation, Frederick entered New York University to study in economics and art history. How these two sciences were combined in the brain of one person is completely incomprehensible, however, Mal studied everything with pleasure. Not only that - he subsequently studied marketing and photography in order to know how to sell and how to serve goods. Probably, even then he planned to create his own brand.
Later, he worked directly on the creation of aromas in several companies, until he was invited as an assistant by perfumer Jean Amik. It was the prestigious perfumery laboratory of Roure Bertrand Dupont, and the young fragrance creator agreed to such a flattering offer.
Here Mal got unlimited opportunities to study different ingredients, a detailed process of making and inventing perfumes. It was a great school, and Frederick absorbed everything like a sponge, and then put it into practice.
He had a great reputation with Amik, and soon perfumer Mark Birlay invited him as a business partner to Mark Birley for Men. This was already a new step in his career, a new step towards opening his own business.
Frederick then already had authority among perfumers and advised Hermes and Christian Lacroix on various issues, since by that time he already had decent experience in creating fragrances, in marketing, and in advertising.
Perfume Career
This experience helped him to understand that the competition in the perfumery market is very high, and at the same time, many companies create similar aromas, and differ from others only in the name and design of the bottle. Therefore, he wanted to come up with something new, radically different from what it was before. And not only in terms of flavor, but also in terms of some new idea.
And Mal found an unexpected solution: he decided to perpetuate the names of perfumers who create fragrances. That is, write their names on bottles and on boxes with aromas. He argued that perfumes, cologne or eau de toilette are works of art that require creativity, inspiration, skill and many more qualities. And those people who create aromas always remain unknown, because the packaging is traditionally named after the owner of the company.
But if an artist, having created a painting, signs it with his own name, then the perfumer can do the same?
Mal turned this proposal to perfumers, and they responded with pleasure. And he became something like an editor or a producer of ideas. Having extensive experience in creating fragrances, Frederick sometimes helped in their creation, corrected some nuances. This idea was developed, was supported by critics. And the famous critic Chandler Burr called this idea revolutionary for the entire beauty industry.
Inspired by such support, Mal opened the Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle boutique in 2000, in which customers could purchase several fragrances from Parisian perfumers.
A touching story is associated with one of them. In the fifties, the creator of fragrances Edmond Rudnitska invented the fragrance Le Parfum de Therese, which he dedicated to his wife Teresa and made it in a single copy. When Mal opened his store, Teresa Rudnitska came to him to give the formula for this fragrance. So she wanted to perpetuate the memory of her husband, who by that time was gone.
What is the idea behind the Frederic Malle brand? Basically, it is expressed in the fact that the author of the fragrance gets complete freedom of action when he does his work. The process goes like this: the author does, Mal edits slightly, if necessary - and the perfume comes out. At the same time there is no deadline, perfumers are not connected by marketing strategies and the need to save on raw materials. They calmly create, taste, make and remake the aroma as many times as necessary to achieve the desired shade of smell.
More than ten people work in the Mal's team - excellent specialists, many of whom are heirs to perfume dynasties, which means that they absorbed love for their profession with their mother’s milk.
The result is truly amazing flavors that bear the name of their creators.
In 2015, fans of the brand were saddened by the news that the Editions de Frederic Malle was taken over by Estee Lauder. However, Mal said in his interview that he will work as before, and that his concept for Estee Lauder will remain the same. As time has shown, these words turned out to be true - the maestos give complete freedom of action, and its aromas still delight people around the world.
