Celso Fadelli is one of the people that succeeded in building a perfume empire. His Intertrade Group is not as great as LVMH or Unilever by volume, but still one of the most advanced and trendsetting companies in the contemporary perfume industry. The group has branches in 10 countries, it has a portfolio of 19 niche perfume brands, including Agonist, Andrea Maack, Blood Concept, Boadicea The Victorious, Bond No9, Czech&Speake, Roads, S-Perfume, Six Scents, SoOud, the Fragrance Kitchen and others. The Intertrade group has opened a chain of Avery concept stores devoted to perfume, cosmetics and design objects, in Milan, Venice, Florence, and Modena, plus London, New Orleans, Beverly Hills, Doha and Paris. True perfume galleries are the places you could meet a perfumer or designer—or, you could meet the founder, Celso Fadelli himself, if you are lucky enough.
Celso Fadelli, CEO of Intertrade Group photo: cpp-luxury.com
Sergey Borisov: Dear Mr. Fadelli, thank you for your time and willingness to share your vision about artistic perfumerie. Your event is named UnScent for the fourth year and takes place in parallel with Esxence, now in Avery Perfume Gallery in Excelsior Milano. What do you mean by that name? Non-fragranced perfumes?
Celso Fadelli: It's not about non-smelling things. There's a line in it, Un-Scent, it's the word we use to speak about scent, or to speak also about the things that are emotionally important to stay around the scent, but they are not a scent itself. So we need to build a beautiful space, a great box, a perfect container for beautiful scents, the content and appearance, things inside and outside should be in harmony. We believe that we need to speak about scent, but we also build beautiful things around the scent. That's why we make collaborations with modern artists, to exhibit our perfumes through and by means of art pieces. Un-Scent means the place where you could find beautiful perfumes.
Sergey Borisov: What's your vision about art in perfumery?
Celso Fadelli: I believe that I was one of those people who promoted this description, art perfumery. At the beginning, we used a lot some other words: like “selective,” for example. And then some other selective brands, like Hermès or Chanel, said "you are not selective perfumery, WE are selective perfumery!" So we decided to rename it art perfumery. But the market changed. I believe that today, looking at what the market is offering, trying to speak about art, when there's no art, sometimes it does not sound completely coherent. So I do not believe that art is everywhere in this market. I would like to say that after 26 years in the perfumery business, I understood that there's only one perfumery on the market.
Sergey Borisov: What do you mean?
Celso Fadelli: There's not niche, art, selective, normal, commercial, etc. Perfumery is only one, there's Perfumery that starts with a capital 'P'. Some people believe in the importance of the juice, they know how it's important to make a proper research of raw materials, and to create something unique that spreads by the word of mouth among people looking for something special. And there's another part of market, and they believe that marketing is more important than the juice (and they are also not wrong!). So we believe in the juice, other people believe more in marketing. But perfumery is only one. If I'm looking at a brand that is owned by big groups like Jo Malone or Tom Ford, Frédéric Malle or Le Labo—I'm not going to say that those brands were niche/art for some time, but now, after changing owners, they're not niche/art anymore. No. Perfumery now is only one. There are very good interesting juices, high-quality juices, and there are very bad juices, not interesting juices, copy-pasted juices, on every sector of the market. Some people invest in perfume raw materials, into the value of the juice, into the perfume-designing process and the perfumer's time, and some people invest in marketing, into celebrities and names, into advertising, and they are also respectable. That's just another way and another interpretation of perfumery. But when they are in the big numbers of sales—you can be sure that they have a high-quality interesting juice. The juice itself is much more important than any art-label or art-legend somebody puts on it. Art is probably too important, it's such a big and sacred word to be used with perfumery. If someone would like to use this word, I would ask him “Where's the line between art and non-art?" I'd give him some perfume to divide by smell—art from non-art. It's becoming ridiculous! There are some brands that could be a part of Unilever, or could be part of Intertrade, or could be a small company from an island in the middle of the ocean—and that fact does not mean that their perfumes are good or bad, or art.
perfume gallery Avery
Sergey Borisov: How do you choose the brands for your distribution?
Celso Fadelli: We have changed the business model of our company, and now we are moving from a distribution model to a licensing model. So now what we have as a company is the ability to build brands, from the creation of the juices and packaging, with all the marketing instruments, strategies, distribution and logistics to move the products on 52 markets worldwide now. Our tools are not in the brand. We have a tool for brands. We could help our partners to develop their ideas worldwide. So the choice process is simple: we should feel the same, and have a similar vision on business with our partners. That's why we licensed Andrée Putman, for example, as I believe it's an amazing product!
Sergey Borisov: I was going to ask you about the brand. It's a total surprise of Un-Scent 2015, as I was aware of one perfume but here I found five new perfumes! L'Original was known as Andrée Putman Préparation Parfumée—plus Un Peu d'Amour, Magnolys, Tan d'Epices, Formidable Man and Figue en Fleur!
Préparation Parfumée Andrée Putman Collection
Celso Fadelli: The story of Andrée Putman is a very good story. I met her in 2001, after she used the perfume created by Olivia Giacobetti as a gift to her birthday guests. She realized after making of 200 bottles for her jubilee birthday party that she has an amazing juice, because so many of her friends called her after the party and asked “Where can I buy it? Printemps, Sephora, Bon Marche?” So she called me and we met, and we decided to market it and started the production of Préparation Parfumée from 1000 bottles. So we made three series of 1000 pieces. Then Andrée told me one day that it would be a dream and she'd love to see this perfume become a collection of perfumes. But at the time I did not feel like we as a company had enough energy and knowledge to make it good enough. Olivia Putman was involved in the conversation also, so when she called me three months after her mother passed away, she suggested we realize the dream of Andrée Putman. So we decided to make a license agreement and we pay royalties to them. We worked together to create the new bottles and packaging. The name of the collection is Préparation Parfumée Andrée Putman, with six perfumes in it. We are very proud to be a part of it. And we`re presenting the collection on the 15th anniversary of Préparation Parfumée
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