État Libre d'Orange - Exit the King

Mehr über État Libre d'Orange

Anyone who hears the motto of this perfume house and is reminded of the famous heraldic phrase of the French hereditary monarchy, ‘Le roi est mort, vive le roi’ – ‘The king is dead, long live the king’ – and now expects an old traditional house is sadly mistaken. What we have here is much more a group of rebels who want to radically restart the art of perfumery from scratch, tabula rasa, and have proclaimed a new state: L'État Libre d'Orange – The Free State of Orange. But who are the masterminds behind the revolution?

The founder of the state is South African-born Etienne de Swardt, who first ended up in New Caledonia in the South Pacific before landing in Paris. There he worked for Givenchy and created, among other things, the dog perfume line ‘Oh my Dog’; but this was not yet idiosyncratic and uncompromising enough for him.

Today, Etienne de Swardt develops each of his fragrances together with friends and allies. His collaborators are Antoine Lie, Antoine Maisondieu and Nathalie Feisthauer, known as the creator of "L'Eau des Merveilles" by Hermès and "Must pour Homme" by Cartier.

The perfume artists' manifesto reads like a liberating blow against the constraints of convention and the market. In their declaration of freedom, they renounce all taboos on the one hand, while on the other hand elevating rebellion and olfactory eroticism to a programme – and, they continue, in a world where even the most talented perfumers must bow to the wishes of brands and the dictatorship of the majority.

This has not remained mere empty promises. The fragrances of État Libre d'Orange are provocative and rebellious, suggestive and erotic, and at the same time shockingly new. Who else could bring out a fragrance like ‘Sécrétions Magnifiques’, a fragrance dedicated solely to bodily fluids, or ‘Fat Electrician’, whose cheeky name alone conjures up the image of a fat, stooped electrician sliding across the floor with a magnificent bricklayer's bum?

But don't judge a book by its cover, or in this case, only a little. The perfumes are based on perfectly thought-out concepts, masterfully crafted and therefore just right for those who are looking for new impulses and ideas beyond the conventions of fragrance.