TWISTED LILY talks AMOUAGE with its CXO, Renaud Salmon

Last night we had a much-anticipated interview with Renaud Salmon, Chief Experience Officer of AMOUAGE. The new creative era has begun for AMOUAGE, and it was great to learn how Renaud and his diverse team of creative experts will lead the journey toward the brand's re-imagined future, Renaud's creative process, and a glimpse at the new 2023 releases.

TL. Love your title as a Chief Experience Officer. Your work is exceptional; you always create a fully immersive experience. Tell us more about it.

RS. As a Chief Experience Officer, I oversee everything the client sees and experiences at AMOUAGE, and that was an intention and quite a big responsibility. I believe fragrance perception, particularly how you discover it, is essential. You smell with more than your nose, so the entire experience is extremely important for me to oversee as a Chief Experience Officer. 

TL: Your work and approach are very multifaceted. What is your creative process like, and where do you draw inspiration?

RS. My creative process is a bit like a collage, I never know when it starts, but I keep trying to grasp things I smell and see. It all begins to aggregate in my studio in Oman, and everything slowly comes together as pieces of the puzzle, and eventually, it becomes complete, and I provide this brief to the perfumes. I pay particular attention to textures and everything around me, and I make sure everything is cohesive and coherent, and then it comes down to editing it. Actually, a lot of the projects don't end up becoming perfumes in the end, but it's part of the creative process. 

TL. We loved the concept of the Creative Collective, and you brought so many new faces onboard. At which point do these creatives get involved in the process?

R.S. It's my job to convince the creatives to join the journey, and something that matters to me is writing, the visual component, and the sounds. For example, I love the writing of Alexandre Halwani and Darius. Reading their texts feels very nuanced and poetic, and I can feel the fragrances when I read their work. Writers are extremely important, and I love to be surrounded by good writers who can convey the message. Visual artists, such as Louise Mertens, she has that sensitivity that I am after, something very refined and timeless but also very rich because AMOUAGE is very rich. Bill Rabinovitch creates the the shapes and packaging design, and Louise is very important from the visual point of view. COPAL makes music,  I introduce every fragrance through music, so we always compose original soundtracks together for each fragrance. Photographers, movie directors, and so many creative minds. In a way, when we announce the Creative Collective, it is something that can originate from a marketing presentation, but it genuinely comes to life.

T.L. There is so much history the brand has; from the branding perspective, what is the story, and where are you taking it next?

R.S. For me, it was a lot more than just a branding exercise. When you come to Oman, you realize that AMOUAGE is more than just a luxury brand. It's really an important part of the country. There was this fear about whether you could create a credible luxury, high-end niche house from Oman. Does it need to come from Paris, Milan, or New York? Together with the family and the CEO, we decided that we would fully embrace that AMOUAGE comes from Oman. There needs to be that perfect balance, where I am going to reinforce where Amouage comes from, portraying the beauty of Oman but taking a lot of international inspiration. Actually, suppose you go back to the first fragrance, AMOUAGE GOLD. In that case, we will clearly see that it was born out of the beauty of the ingredients from Oman but put together by Guy Robert, a famous french perfumer. You will see that type of balance in the future. 

When it comes to fragrances, it's going to be a very interesting discussion, and I'm curious to find out how other people perceive AMOUAGE. I've been thinking a lot about it before I could answer that question myself. I began with understanding what people like about AMOUAGE. Two of the bestsellers for example are Interlude Man and Reflection Man, which are the opposites of each other, so the conclusion was that Amouage is not about a particular style but about creating a fragrances profile in a more generous, rich qualitative way, than everything else, AMOUAGE way. Imagine you do a barbershop Fougere fragrance, but it needs to be a pinnacle of that profile. Meander, for example, was an idea of a contemporary woody fragrance, something creamy and nuanced. When we worked on it with Mackenzie Reilly, it was about creating the necessary complexity, until it was fully achieved. 

For more on the latest AMOUAGE Collector's Box which has 45 iconic fragrances, including the four new releases of 2023, head over to our Instagram page and watch the full video.