Etat Libre d’Orange Is Making a Luxury Perfume out of Trash and Worms

Grasse, the cradle of perfuming in France, has done an impressive job of associating perfume with refinement. When you think of luxury scents, it’s easy to imagine fragrant fields of flowers or the elegant crushing of petals. The best-known perfume brands build on that romance. Consider Guerlain’s ultra-lavish "The Legend of Shalimar" from 2013, Dior’s modern fantasies featuring Natalie Portman or even Kenzo’s award-winning "My Mutant Brain" from 2016. All that baggage is part of what makes Etat Libre d’Orange’s latest creation so disconcerting—and intriguing. A co-creation project with Ogilvy Paris, Etat Libre d’Orange has concocted a perfume made out of trash. It will be called "Les Fleurs du Déchet" (The Flowers of Waste), a play on Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil). A spot touting the perfume opens with an almost pornographically vivid shot of dead flowers and moldy fruit tumbling over fertile soil. Earthworms take residence, winding through fleshy waste. A voiceover recites, "Trash, but never waste. The most wanted scent, made from the unwanted: Etat Libre d’Orange." [kickout id="1"] Poetry aside, its English brand name is far more brutal: "I Am Trash." Etat Libre d’Orange is "a luxury perfume brand that exists to defy convention," founder and CEO Etienne de Swardt explained. The brand name translates to The Free State of Orange; de Swardt said it’s more of a mindset than a perfume house. Defiance is rooted deep in Etat’s DNA. The company is located in Paris’ Marais district, a trendy neighborhood. Its address? 69 rue des Archives, on a corner that crosses the rue Pastourelle. "The 69 is not a coincidence—it’s in keeping with the sensuality of the brand," said de Swardt. Even its position on a crossroads is intentional: Etat Libre d’Orange exists as "the crossroads between perfume and imagination," not to mention "edgy design." From the jagged edges of its perfume bottles to its prickly displays, "edge is a psychological mindset and a physical one for us," he added. Its 40-plus house scents—with names like "You or Someone Like You" and "Putain des Palaces" (Palace Whores)—are targeted to non-conformists "who don’t want to smell familiar, go against the grain," project manager Terry Fouchy of Ogilvy Paris noted. "'I Am Trash' is for these people, curious to know what a perfume named 'I am Trash' smells like and brave enough to wear it." There's something to be said for the relationship between waste and luxury and combining them so flagrantly. While the positioning seems odd, it casts light on the less sexy ingredients that go into perfume, from ambergris—a waxy lump from the digestive tracts of sperm whales (allegedly found in the original Chanel No. 5)—to skatole, a compound from feces and coal tar. French perfume specifically has a history of producing perfumes that are deliberately "impolite, as well as animalistic," writes Susannah Frankel for The Independent. That heritage conceives bizarre iterations, even today—the Nosulus Rift, an olfactory VR device created by Buzzman Paris to promote a South Park video game, used jasmine essence to echo a faint fecal note. [kickout id="2"] But there’s also an ecologically responsible element to "I Am Trash" that condemns the waste luxury so often represents. Its creation is driven by a question: How can we reuse the exorbitant amount of waste left over from the industry's process of fabricating perfume? "Luxury can’t ignore anymore the fact that our planet is not a tonneau des Danaïdes," said Ogilvy Paris creative director Juana O'Gorman, using an expression that means something like "bottomless pit." "It’s a shift that our society needs to take, and will," she continued. In a culture driven by overconsumption, "we have the tendency to trash things and people very fast—in real and virtual life. Everything that doesn’t fit our perfection is immediately deleted. Everything and everybody will, one day or another, be trashed." "When you wear second-hand clothes, you don’t think about what it was in its previous life; you just wear it," creative director Beatrice Lassailly added. "We are just a little bit upfront with Etat Libre d’Orange." The scent—which everyone at Ogilvy promises "won’t smell like trash"—is still being created, but Lassailly and O'Gorman say the ad provides an honest depiction of its composition. "What we’re using in production is exactly what is seen in the film: What looks rotten was rotten; the worms were as alive as all of us, and what feels like stinking actually stunk," Lassailly revealed. Lassailly continued, "The time-lapse footage was shot for real and during two full weeks. It’s only organic trash since the waste the perfume we'll reuse is mainly organic. The most challenging aspect? Not throwing up during the shoot." Etat Libre d’Orange approached Ogilvy with the idea. It’s been a collaborative process ever since, with the agency helping decide the name and co-designing the label. “The client kept us in the loop on every step, even shared the range of different essences to brief the nose, and we shared thoughts on this as well,” said O'Gorman. "'I Am Trash' is the result of a long reflection around the consideration of waste within society," de Swardt explained. "Beyond the environmental challenge, we need to change our perception of trash to reconsider the lifecycle of the resources we use. This is a difficult task that requires all scents to be stimulated." Etat Libre d’Orange believes perfumers have a role to play in using senses to change mentalities, which is central to its positioning. [kickout id="3"] "Perfume impregnates your skin and becomes part of your DNA. Within this context, this scented initiative comes to life almost as a crusade, one that could almost replicate the spirit of [French investigative journalist] Albert Londres within the perfume industry," de Swardt said. "This project brings to life our very unique view of where the planet should go." "I Am Trash" will debut this fall, and Ogilvy believes no previous perfume has ever been made with worms and decomposing waste. In a statement from Ogilvy’s Emmanuel Ferry, general manager of branding and advertising, and Etat Libre d’Orange’s de Swardt, the pair concluded, "Trash is normally not regarded as beautiful. But with 'I Am Trash,' beauty is found in waste. Taking the old and reinventing it to be new again. In a different form. A thing of beauty." CREDITS Brand: Etat Libre d’Orange Founder and managing director: Etienne de Swardt Agency: Ogilvy Paris Creative directors: Juana O Gorman et Beatrice Lassailly Copywriter: Jeremy Claud Artistic director: France De-Saint-Steban General director: Emmanuel Ferry Project manager: Terry Fouchy Production: H&0 Director/Photographer: Inès Dieleman Producer: Barthélémy De Champsavin Production director: Maxime Gallet Stage manager: Jordan Santoul 1er director assistant/photo: Thierry Cron Head operator: François Catonné 1er assistant OPV: Raphaël Dougé Electronic operator: Eric Baraillon Decorator: Alain Roussel Tamer: Manuel Senra Floral stylist: Garance du Nord Post Production house: H&O and Reepost Post-producer: Emmanuelle Bottelin-Lescoutre Editor: Quentin Lohr Color grading: Emiliano Serantoni Graphic artist: François Puget Music: Composer: Nicolas Schindler Music Supervision: Too Young Music

Marketing Innovation

Etat Libre d’Orange Is Making a Luxury Perfume out of Trash and Worms

"I Am Trash" will challenge conventions

Angela Natividad

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Angela Natividad