&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be obvious. Don&rsquo;t wear the same perfume as everybody else. If you want to be unique, you have to dare to wear a fragrance that is different.&rdquo; - Mathilde Laurent.

From the magnetic Pasha to the virtuoso Oud Vanill&eacute; and audacious D&eacute;claration, there is only one imperative: always follow your own nose!

How do you translate the signature Cartier style into a fragrance?
There are different ways to translate the&nbsp;Cartier&nbsp;style, but I would say the most important is to be elegant and unique. These days, the&nbsp;fragrance&nbsp;market seems to be heavily trend-driven, leading to homogeneity. We expect the high perfumery and niche brands to bring creativity, but that is often not the case. What we offer at Cartier is uniqueness; we propose perfumes that are in line with the mood of the moment, without following trends. For example, I always try to work with notes that may not be as popular, but still correspond to the era, so people can have that feeling of discovering something new yet familiar. This daring elegance is the essence of the Cartier style.

Let&rsquo;s explore some of the Maison&rsquo;s masculine scents, starting with Pasha de Cartier. What makes Pasha so appealing for men?
Pasha has been a real success since its launch, and it has only gotten more appealing because of its vintage elegance, which is not really something that&rsquo;s on trend. It&rsquo;s like buying a vintage Saint Laurent trench &mdash; you just know you&rsquo;ll look amazing in it. Pasha is that kind of mythic piece; paired with the right outfit and shoes, maybe with a beer in hand, it becomes incredibly stylish.
Then there&rsquo;s Oud Vanill&eacute; from the Les Heures Voyageuses Collection, which enters into High Perfumery territory. How do you create a compelling fragrance using only two ingredients?
It&rsquo;s not purely two ingredients. Oud and vanilla clash, in fact, so I needed other raw materials to bring them together. With these short formulas, you&rsquo;ll occasionally need to orientate the vanilla to be more powdery or white, or the oud to be even more oudy, depending on whether you want harmony or contrast.
The line is also emblematic of the Cartier style, because it is a true tribute to oud. At Cartier, whenever we are inspired by a foreign culture, we have to respect the source; we never take a culture and make it our own. So I really focused on showing the beauty of pure oud, rather than make a French reinterpretation of it, so to speak.

This brings us to the new D&eacute;claration Eau de Parfum. What sets D&eacute;claration apart from other masculine scents by Cartier?
D&eacute;claration is an audacious accord by Jean-Claude Ellena, a leathery, spicy and fresh creation that is still amazing today. It is unlike anything else on the market, and yet remains within Cartier&rsquo;s family of masculine fragrances, all of whom have strong personalities.
What is your approach when creating a new D&eacute;claration expression?
I always return to the original accord with each variation, pulling a different inspiration and amplifying it. For example with Haute Fra&icirc;cheur, I made D&eacute;claration bloom with leaves and fresh fruits. Now with the Eau de Parfum, I made D&eacute;claration boil with spices, turning it into chai. The original had a tea accord, but it leaned towards leathery and smoky, with fresh spices like cardamom and cilantro&hellip;
Cinnamon as well.
Yes cinnamon and also ginger. And when I added latte and boiled it, the chai becomes obvious &mdash; soft, smooth and very spicy. Once again, respecting the original accord, but lighting it in a different way with temperature.

D&eacute;claration is a fragrance for saying the things that matter. What is the message with this Eau de Parfum expression?
I always recommend D&eacute;claration to elegant men, so my message remains the same: Don&rsquo;t be obvious. Don&rsquo;t wear the same perfume as everybody else. If you want to be unique, you have to dare to wear a fragrance that is different. And I don&rsquo;t mean strange. A good creative fragrance is not strange or odd or unpleasant &mdash; and there are a lot of those at the moment. This Eau de Parfum is different yet hyper-comfortable and very sexy, and it is worn for pleasure that is shared with those who smell it.

Perfumer Mathilde Laurent on the Cartier's Masculine Scents

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