Last month we were lucky enough to host renowned perfumer Meo Fusciuni and his wife Federica at our boutique for a wonderful event filled with personal stories, inspirations, and anecdotes about his emblematic fragrances. In an effort to share this wonderful experience with our online community and those who could not get a ticket, and to further the experience of those who attended, we have made available this Question & Answer interview between Meo and Tracy. We hope you enjoy it!
Tracy: Sharing one's art with the world is generally a very vulnerable experience. Your creative process lays bare your innermost thoughts and feelings through poetry, photography, music, and fragrance. Do you feel compelled to be that vulnerable and what does that look like for you?
Meo Fusciuni: In my creative work, all forms of expression combine, finding a perfect balance. I believe that recounting one's intimacy through all these forms is not an obligation for me, but it is the only way I know to achieve my goal, which is to excite through fragrance. I believe that in every art form, the most intimate and fragile part of ourselves holds the essence of expression. I love this aspect of my work, each perfume contains not just a formula, but often an entire year of my life, my travels, my reading, and the music I listen to. It becomes a total, almost holistic experience of perfumery.
T: Are your inspirations always travel-based?
M: Not all of them. Travel is definitely an important part of my work and research. The journey puts me far from the central focus of my life, it distances me and makes me look at things differently. Traveling puts you close to other cultures, people who are different from you, and your way of thinking; this helps me a lot. The escape from the every day is sometimes necessary. Having said that, not all the fragrances in our collection are about distant journeys. Some fragrances such as Notturno, Luce, Little Song, and Spirito, are journeys into my soul, deep inside myself. They are moments when time is suspended and we find ourselves, like in a labyrinth.
T: Do you ever experience "writer's block" when it comes to your perfume creations?
M: It happened to me only once, before I created Varanasi. After the release of Spirito, I had an inner emptiness occupying my days, it was the first time it happened. At first, it was panic, then I experienced that period as a good time to study new techniques in my craft. Fortunately, then came the inspiration to create a new trilogy, dedicated to my love for Asia, and soon after the idea to tell the story of three places of the heart, India, Laos, and Japan through three trips I had actually experienced. A timeless trilogy.
T: Are there other perfumers/ creators that inspire you?
M: Initially, when I embarked on this new path in my life, I was very afraid of smelling the work of other perfumers and other collections. I was afraid of being influenced in my technique and creative inspiration. After a few years, I realized that I had achieved my own olfactory signature and I started to smell a lot of the great perfumers, both contemporary and pioneers of this world: Jean Claude Ellena, Lucien Ferrero, Mark Buxton, Alberto Morillas, Dominique Ropion, Arturetto Landi, Pierre Bourdon, Lorenzo Villoresi, Jean Carles, Germaine Cellier, Edmond Roudnitska, Isabelle Doyen.
T: With your background in studying natural medicine at a pharmaceutical facility in Parma, do you intentionally use herbs and materials with specific properties to evoke certain effects?
M: My studies had a great influence on my work in the early years. For what you mean, I only did it specifically once, in 2# nota di viaggio (Shukran...). I have always loved the nerve-tonic action of Mint on a mental level on humans. Its action on our mood is very strong. So when I thought of recounting the moments of joy I spent in Morocco, I immediately thought of using Mint as the main ingredient in the composition.
T: How does the interpersonal relationship with your wife as the artistic director for Meo Fusciuni work for you both? Has it been this way since you launched the line or has it evolved over the years?
M: Our roles within Meo Fusciuni are quite distinct, but there is a continuous and daily confrontation on our path. Over the years I think it has always improved. Every aspect of my work blends into Federica's work. She has to translate into matter and aesthetics what I narrate in fragrance. I think it is an endless process of growth, each of us learning from the other, every day.
T: What is the difference between working for yourself versus creating a fragrance for another fragrance house such as Masque Milano and your fragrance "Luci ed Ombre”?
M: In the past, working for other brands has been very interesting and challenging. You are confronted with different briefs from your own path and each experience becomes a challenge to yourself. There is more technical work behind a consultancy. When working on a brief, my work is less of a gut feeling and I think more about staying within the lines of the brief I have been given. Of course, whoever comes to me as a perfumer is looking for a very strong emotional part, and I understand that, but I always have to control my impetus, which I never do in my creations for my own brand. I always let the impetus follow its path, taking all the risks that can arise from that.
T: You have stated that your method of creating a scent follows the pattern of naming the fragrance, choosing a story and/or an experience, and finally composing a formula. Can you walk us through that experience? How do you know when a fragrance is finished?
M: I think every perfumer has their own method and I think it is important to find one's own early on. When one of my perfumes is born, the spark starts with the name, as if it were the epiphany of a new birth; for me it is the genesis of my work. At that point, behind the name lies a story, personal, intimate or a journey, to a place in the world that tells or may in the future tell the story behind the name. At this point I have everything, name and story...it is at this point that my being a chemist and a perfumer comes out. The formula stems from my very intimate relationship with the raw materials, which I feel are close to me, to my story. It is a very intimate dialogue with them. In the first five, or six months of work, solitude and intimacy is fundamental for me. I realize that a fragrance is finished when the emotion in the feeling is so great that I start to cry, it has always been like this. It is as if my spirit empties itself of all the tensions accumulated over the months, the mind frees itself.
T: Have you always approached making perfumes the same way, in regard to inspiration, vulnerability, and process, or was there a shift to allow for the methods you've shared with us?
M: This is a beautiful question dear Tracy, because I believe that in life the smartest thing a man can do is to believe in the changes, in the metamorphoses that life brings you and not to hold on to thoughts.
I have changed my technique over the years and I think I have grown technically over the years, but I still want to improve, study and do better. All this leads you to grow and sometimes to change your primordial ideas. I think that's life and its natural course.
Thank you for this space into your blog. I will always carry the experience I had with you in Portland, always, in my heart.