Annick Ménardo
A fragrance is good when the accord surprises me. The pillars are there, they answer one another, I see the pattern, I feel the melody.
She has been called "dark" for her taste for burnt, from Lolita Lempicka's liquorice to Bulgari Black's tarry tea. But she can also be seen in green or mauve - anise and heliotrope are her favourite notes - or dressed in red, like her diabolical Hypnotic Poison, whose apple-shaped bottle evokes both the forbidden fruit and the tree of knowledge. Did the fairies of Grasse, a wingbeat away from her native Cannes, hover over her cradle? Menardo is gifted with a musical sense of chords, of the melody of a composition.
He cultivated this gift at ISIPCA, the international school of perfumery, cosmetics and food flavourings based in Versailles, where he was taught by Isabelle Doyen, and then at Créations Aromatiques (now Symrise) with his mentor Michel Almairac. From 1991 to 2018 he worked at Firmenich. On 5 November 2018, Annick joins forces with Symrise to embark on a new adventure. A gift that can also be understood as an offering. In an industry that seeks originality while requiring perfumers to listen to the demands of their customers, she composes her fragrances for those who know how to listen.
