French Twist: The House of Carven's New Quirky-Cool Perfume

“The bottle is meant to look like you stole it from a pharmacy or a laboratory,” Guillaume Henry says mischievously, describing the frosty glass vessel that holds the brand-new fragrance, Carven Le Parfum, which launches in the U.S. exclusively at Saks Fifth Avenue tomorrow. Henry, the young creative director of the Parisian fashion house who manages to be a rather impish fellow despite the serious job title, has taken the grand name of Carven and infused it with a decidedly jeune fille spirit in recent years. Now he has taken his ability to intuit what a cool Parisienne wishes to wear, as she rides the Ferris wheel in the Tuileries or studies hard for the bac, and extended it to the world of fragrance.

From left: Models backstage at Carven's Fall 2013 collection; the fashion house's new signature perfume.

Of course, when it comes to scent, even a fashion designer with an ultra-sophisticated nose is a rank amateur—collaboration with a professional perfumer is a necessity. For the task, he tapped the French fragrance master Francis Kurkdjian, providing him with the briefest of briefs: “I gave him a few words—fresh, sunny afternoon, spontaneous, timeless—and he made it into a smell!” the designer remembers. Kurkdjian’s winning formula artfully combines notes of neroli, mandarin blossom, white hyacinth, white sandalwood, jasmine, ylang ylang ‪and, in a witty olfactory nod to the house’s penchant for pale green, a hint of sweet pea.‬ (Carven’s legendary 1946 fragrance Ma Griffe comes packaged in a box of that hue, while the new carton for Le Parfum features delicate green–and-white pinstripes.)

Asked how he met the challenge of translating Henry’s sensibility into a fragrance, Kurkdjian says that he thinks of the Carven woman as definitely feminine, and sporty in an urban way. “She has humor and a certain detachment,” he says of designing the floral chypre scent along with a certain “flair and quirkiness.”

And though this flair and quirkiness may evoke all the joys and carefree pleasures of youth, Kurkdjian, it turns out, has a more expansive view of the subject: “Carven is a state of mind, an allure,” he insists. “It is not a date of birth on a passport!”