PARIS — In keeping with its name, L’Artisan Parfumeur is launching the first talent show dedicated to the art of perfumery, called “Le Nez.”
The Puig-owned brand, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, aims to shine a light on the mysterious profession that makes fragrance, a living, invisible art, and to reveal the talents shaping perfumery’s future.
“Le Nez” was created in partnership with Givaudan, the Swiss fragrance supplier, and coproduced with Mediawan’s subsidiary 909 Productions.
Thomas James, president of niche and wellness brands at Puig, took note of the frenzy about the world of fragrance on TikTok and other social media platforms. The interest comes from the young demographic fueled by Gen Z, which is becoming more expert about perfumes.
“I asked myself: How can we reach those people and talk to them in a less classical way — in a more pop format,” James said. “How can we also shed light on something that is very mysterious: how to become a perfumer?”
Alongside addressing the category and cohort in a disruptive, resonating way, another goal is to discover new talents. “We wanted to really have an opportunity to get fresher ideas, a new point of view on the métier of the perfumer,” James said.
He approached Mediawan, the independent content studio. “I told them I want to create the first-ever fragrance talent show in the world,” James said.
The format is innovative, involving 30 students from France’s prestigious perfumery schools École Supérieure du Parfum, or ESP, and Institut Supérieur International du Parfum, de la Cosmétique et de l’Aromatique Alimentaire, or ISIPCA.
The competition spans six 30-minute episodes on French streaming platform TF1+ with students undergoing six challenges that produce one winner. That person’s fragrance will be produced, launched and commercialized worldwide by L’Artisan Parfumeur.
“Givaudan is our key partner,” James said, of the fragrance supplier that provided candidates with olfactive ingredients and other materials to make scents.
“Le Nez” is not created as L’Artisan Parfumeur-branded content, but dovetails with the brand’s ethos. So does the competition’s tag line, which reads: “Qui sera le meilleur Artisan Parfumeur?” or “Who will be the best Artisan Parfumeur?”
“For them, it is the opportunity of a lifetime,” James said. “To be able to have their first fragrance edited by L’Artisan. The brief was very clear: We don’t want a fresh fruity floral that we can commercialize tomorrow. We want a big idea. We want to discover what they have to say. It’s a risk — it’s also very Puig. It tells a lot about the group as a home of creativity.”
He said it’s a take on how the company views the perfume métier and category “as something very lively, dynamic and modern.”
James described the competition as “super bold and audacious.” “It’s never seen before,” he underlined, adding it takes perfume students out of the traditional curriculum, in which they begin working as an assistant perfumer or evaluator, and is in line with Puig’s penchant to break molds.
“This is what we love to do,” James said. “We push storytelling on prestige, we push storytelling and experience on niche. Here, this is the first time that we want to disrupt the métier itself.
“We don’t want to break the dream, but we want to decode perfumery — and to say becoming a perfumer is an act of creation,” he said. “If you have a story to tell, you can tell it through music, through paintings, through sculpture, but also through fragrance. My dream would be to hear that people have watched this program and discovered the vocation. There is the didactic part, of course, but there are also all the artistic parts.”
Le Nez will air beginning in December — the exact date is not yet confirmed — prior to an international rollout in 2027. (In France, TF1+ is a partner with Netflix.)
“There will be pre-episodes and post-episodes on social,” James said. Those will have expanded content about the candidates.
“Le Nez” was filmed in late August and September, first in Paris with all the contestants. Each of the 30 students enters the competition with his or her own “candidate fragrance.”
A jury of fragrance professionals helps guide the students and make selections among them. They include Antoine Maisondieu, a Givaudan master perfumer; Sarah Bouasse, a journalist and olfactory expert; Reyes Lezcano, general manager of L’Artisan Parfumeur, and James.
By the second episode, 10 students are in a villa in the South of France, where they focus on creation. Each has its own perfumer’s bench and access to hundreds of olfactive raw materials from Givaudan.
There, the students encounter people outside of the world of perfume. “Because fragrance, as every creative act, needs to be nourished by external influences,” James said. “If the fragrance industry only looks at itself, it becomes boring. So we wanted to inspire them with external people.”
Among the guests are chef Thierry Marx and author Maïa Mazaurette.
Each episode after the first of “Le Nez” is centered around a theme, a mini-challenge and an eliminatory challenge. The first theme is on sex and desire, led by Mazaurette. That is followed by one focused on exploring conventional notions of beauty by uncovering the unexpected draw of unpleasant scents with Naïla Hamayed, Givaudan’s fragrance evaluator.
“This notion of transcendence is key in all the programs,” James said.
With Marx the theme is gourmandise. Yet this isn’t about sweet edibles, but rather something molecular, salty — to push candidates outside their comfort zones.
“The last episode was with the special guest Jean-Claude Ellena, who was not there as a judge,” James said. The perfumer at the start of his career created with L’Artisan Parfumeur’s founder Jean Laporte the Mûre et Musc scent that pioneered fruity fragrances.
“He was there just as a guest to talk to them,” James said. “It was important for them to open their universe to other people and to see that a fragrance is also the result of many, many influences.”
In the final phase, each candidate presents the judges with their initial fragrance that has been updated with all the learnings from their residency.
James was impressed by the rising generation of perfumers’ work ethic, remarkable ideas and ability to storytell.
The winning fragrance is expected to hit the market in mid-2027. “The winner is working with Givaudan and us to finalize his or her big idea,” James said.
L’Artisan Parfumeur, born in 1976, was audacious from the outset, fashioning fragrances as works of art with a strong viewpoint. The name of each perfumer crafting every fragrance for the brand is inscribed on the fragrance bottles. L’Artisan Parfumeur has remained a pioneering niche perfume brand with an independent, free spirit.
“As L’Artisan Parfumeur, we have a mission to find the next artisan of the next generation,” James said. “We will keep on nurturing the talents of tomorrow. When you are called ‘L’Artisan Parfumeur,’ your duty is to transmit this notion of artisanal and perfumery.
“Our duty as a leader on the market is also to grow the category — and to disrupt the category,” he said.