A Path in Creative Direction: Thibaud Crivelli on Creative Entrepreneurship and Maison Crivelli’s Artistic Vision

Within the many diverse and exciting career paths available in the industry, creative direction is one of the most dynamic, combining many different skills, experiences, and opportunities. Among the array of illustrious creative directors throughout the history of fragrance, Thibaud Crivelli is one of the most promising, with his brand Maison Crivelli having quickly taken the industry by storm and being a key contributor to the popularisation and boom of the niche artistic market.
On the occasion of National Fragrance Week 2024, we are joined by Thibaud to explore his path into the industry and his pioneering artistic vision for the Maison.

Thibaud, as an industry veteran and creative visionary, we'd love to learn more about your journey in launching Maison Crivelli and becoming its creative director!

Creating a perfume house has always been a life project. This is something I was already mentioning when I was a teenager.

I grew up in the cosmetic city of La Roche Posay in a family of scientists and entrepreneurs, so I believe that the environment around me built my taste for perfume and made me realize the possibility of creating a perfume brand one day.

I also had the chance to be surrounded with nature. I studied business and then I started to work for various perfume brands in Asia, with the objective to create my brand one day. This gave me the opportunity to discover a lot of perfume ingredients in places where they are cultivated. It built my knowledge over time.

As an avid traveller, which fragrance cultures and heritage do you hope the global market will explore more in the near future, and which ones have recently captured your artistic and olfactive imagination?

While Maison Crivelli perfumes are not inspired by places or cultures but by experiences of my life, I feel lucky to have spent 10 years in Asia and explored over 90 countries, and this has enriched me so much.

What matters the most to me is how I live life every day, rather than where I am physically located. My family background and personality led me to do a lot of synesthesia. This specific approach has made me discover perfume in a very different way and it also explains why Maison Crivelli is so special in the market.

I believe that the future of perfume will be more focused on proposing truly original scents. This is a must, given the level of saturation of the market. The key point is to be able to share those elements with customers and touch their hearts, and I believe that this is possible when there are true stories behind each perfume.

Perfumes create bridges between cultures. The tastes still vary from one continent to another, but perfume fans create communities which transcend borders and cultures – and it is so heartwarming to see this.

Your biography is rich with vivid scent memories, including the dreamy imagery behind the latest Extrait, Tubereuse Australe. Could you guide us through your creative process for evaluating and supporting Perfumer Quentin Bisch's composition process?

To create Tubéreuse Astrale I was inspired by childhood memories spent with my father, who was a huge fan of astronomy and aviation.

He always enjoyed looking at the Milky Way and the stars, and I loved to accompany him. We spent many evenings outside in open fields with the wind blowing and crickets singing, just gazing at the stars together. During these outings, I remember smelling the tuberose. Those are delicate, sparkling white flowers that only showcase their true beauty at night.

The choice of working with Quentin Bisch on this new fragrance was instantaneous. He has a unique talent for creating great sillage, and I feel his signature and originality correspond to Maison Crivelli’s spirit.

For Tubéreuse Astrale, I wanted to use tuberose essence but in a different way, a way that will astonish tuberose lovers but also convince people who usually don’t like it. Very quickly, the idea of the infinite night and twinkling stars inspired Quentin to work on a sparkling tuberose contrasting with the smoothness of velvety leather, with hints of peach skin. The feedback has been outstanding so far!

With Maison Crivelli, you collaborate with various perfumers and fragrance houses. As a creative director, how do you approach these collaborations, considering the individual styles, expertise, and artistic visions of perfumers, as well as the olfactive palettes and ingredient portfolios of the companies involved?

I chose to work with various perfumers as I wanted each scent of the collection to be a surprise and an experience in itself. Working with different people would guarantee that the creative direction of each perfume would be specific.

For Oud Maracuja and Oud Stallion, for instance, I chose to collaborate with Jordi Fernandez who is renowned for his expertise on oud and leather scents, having spent many years immersing himself in Middle Eastern culture. Between his expertise and my creative vision, we managed to create very surprising yet bewitching fragrances. We are actually working together on a new oud extrait that will be launching this summer exclusively with Harrods, I think people are going to love it.

When it comes to the creative process, I brief the perfumers by explaining to them the experience that I lived. I send a mood board with images, videos, sounds, and descriptions of food I had or people I met. Then we work together to bring those multi-sensorial facets to the perfume. As a result, our perfumes are full of contrasts of ingredients but also sensations. As I’m not a perfumer, it’s really important that we spend time together so the perfumers can understand, my experience, in order to translate it in an olfactory manner.

What role do fragrance trends play in your work, and how do you translate the current market trends with Maison Crivelli?

Trends come and go, but true style and quality remains. We believe consumers feel it too, and it explains their eagerness in past years to invest in extract fragrances versus their usual EDP. Perfume is like a signature, a way to define our style and how we want people to perceive us. A good sillage can say a lot about someone’s personality. And the better way to make a great one, one that will last all day long and make you feel and be seen like no other, is through a highly concentrated and qualitative fragrance such as extraits. It comes with a cost but this is an investment that customers are ready to make.

Maison Crivelli has become a leading artistic niche brand with widespread critical and commercial acclaim. How has the niche market changed in recent years, and how do you envision both the market and Maison Crivelli continuing to pioneer creative research and artistic innovation in the industry?

I am happy to see that the brand is developing so fast and that our creations find an echo in the perfume community. The main feedback we are receiving is that our perfumes are truly different from other brands, very long-lasting and also have an amazing diffusion.

We see a trend in the market towards more perfume concentration, for better or for worse as some brands also tend to create overwhelming scents. On our side, we try to position the brand with very international, well-blended, elegant and surprising scents which will resonate with modern-day perfume explorers. Our customers are curious, they take risks and they also love to experience new things in life.

In the mid-term, I see the market becoming even more customer-centric. Brands see how they can focus more on what customers feel when they discover the perfumes - in the stores or online. There will be newcomers, which is also a great opportunity for everyone. It just puts more pressure on the existing brands to work on refined brand platforms, including product, training, press or merchandising for instance.