Northern Love: the long-awaited return of Frédéric Malle's cult perfume, thirteen years later
There are perfumes that disappear and that people keep asking for, for years, like asking for a song again. Northern Love is one of those. Invited this morning by the house Frédéric Malle to a masterclass with perfumer Bruno Jovanović, I was able to discover this launch unlike the others, since it is actually the return of a cult perfume, created thirteen years ago, withdrawn from sale for several years, and brought back to life by the demand of its faithful fans. Account of a rebirth, and of a crush.
The story of a perfume that was brought back
To understand Northern Love, you have to go back to 2013. That year, Les Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle inaugurated a new collection of olfactory portraits, dedicated to personalities the house admires. The first of these portraits is devoted to Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten, and it was entrusted to Bruno Jovanović. The perfume, titled Dries Van Noten by Frédéric Malle, enjoyed real success, driven by a creamy sandalwood and an unexpected gourmand note of Flemish pastries.
Then came the turning point. Dries Van Noten launched his own perfume brand, and it was no longer possible for Frédéric Malle to continue marketing a creation bearing that name. The perfume was therefore discontinued around the turn of the 2020s, becoming the only creation ever withdrawn from the house's catalogue. But its memory did not fade. Requests poured in, year after year, from customers who had fallen in love with that scent and were unable to find an equivalent. Thirteen years after its creation, the house finally yielded to this fervor and relaunched the composition under a new name: Northern Love. A rare rebirth, dictated not by marketing but by the sincere attachment of a community. For a perfume lover, there is something beautiful in seeing a house listen to its devotees in this way.
Bruno Jovanović, the perfumer of memories
Meeting Bruno Jovanović is to understand where this perfume comes from. A Parisian trained at ISIPCA after a scientific baccalaureate, he is a passionate professional with a deliberate culture, one of those who learned their craft with rare exacting standards. His career took off in Paris, then he settled in New York in 2001, where he has lived since. He even has this tasty way of describing himself: he who was a Parisian living in New York now considers himself an American who lives in Paris when he returns. An inversion that says a lot about his journey.
Trained in the 1990s, the golden age of the first gourmands, nourished by the great Guerlain and Shalimar, he is a declared lover of patchouli and warm materials. His vision of the profession is fascinating. He observes a globalization of perfumery: Paris continues to infuse the world with its elegance and its very French structure, but the Middle East, with Dubai at the forefront, takes on considerable influence. He recalls that it was unthinkable only ten years ago to receive requests from houses to integrate oud into their creations, which has become common today. A homogenization of tastes he attributes partly to social networks, which circulate cultures and desires from one end of the planet to the other. The craft itself remains the same regardless of the city, he says. It is the customers who change.
Reinventing gourmandise, the Frédéric Malle way
What Bruno Jovanović wanted to do with this perfume was to reinvent the very notion of gourmandise. The problem, he explains in essence, is that today, when one says gourmand, everyone thinks sugar, caramel, confectionery. Yet true gourmandise can be something else entirely. A hot baguette straight from the oven. A ripe, juicy fig. Something comforting and sensory, unique to each person, that does not need to be sweet to be gourmand.
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