Master Perfumer Olivier Pescheux Dies at 57

Master perfumer Olivier Pescheux, the nose behind the Paco Rabanne 1 Million scent, has died after reportedly battling a long illness. He was 57.

 

Pescheux was known for Paco Rabanne’s 1 Million scent, which last year was voted by beauty industry insiders as one of the 100 greatest fragrances of all time. 

 

He was also known for the Diptyque 34 Collection, which earned the “Home Collection of the Year” honor at the Fragrance Foundation Awards in 2019.

 

The Paris-born perfumer was also the sophisticated nose behind marquee brand fragrances, including Versace and Yohji Yamamoto. In 2018, he joined fellow Givaudan perfumer Nisrine Grillié and the H&M in-house team in creating a fragrance collection of 25 scents for the Swedish retailer.

 

Pescheux won the International Fragrance Prize, formerly the Prix François Coty, in 2010.

 

His other fragrances include Adidas Fresh Escape (2010); Andy Warhol Marilyn Bleue (2001); and Christian Dior Higher with Olivier Gillotin in 2001.

 

Pescheux attended the ISIPCA, a French school for post-graduate studies in perfume, cosmetics products and food flavor formulation, with an apprenticeship period in the industry, before going to work for Payan Bertrand. He later worked for Annick Goutal and had been with Givaudan since 1998.

 

Despite the difficulty of a rewarding career in fragrance, that didn’t stop Pescheux from pursuing his dream; he used his passion to defy the odds.

 

He was reported to have once said, “I wanted to become a perfumer at the age of 12 after I watched a Catherine Deneuve film with my mother. I watched the process and saw the man on screen smelling from a bottle of perfume and said to my mother, ‘I want to do that.’ She said, ‘I think it is not so simple.’”