"If Kilian is the Rolls-Royce of French perfumery, then we're more like Tesla," says Benoît Verdier, proudly stroking the no-frills glass flacons of his perfume brand Ex Nihilo.

He is currently on the road in Germany to present the Parisian niche label in selected perfumeries.

And Verdier justifies the comparison with Tesla by pointing out that Ex Nihilo also attaches great importance to innovation.

Since childhood, Verdier has known that this cannot be done without the basics of traditional craftsmanship.

Maria Wiesner

Editor in the “Society & Style” department.

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He grew up in Provence, at the heart of French perfume art.

At 18 he went to Paris to study politics and met Olivier Royère at the university.

The son of a diplomat had traveled the world and worked in a bank for several years. Now he was developing the idea for his own perfume company with Verdier.

They brought in Sylvie Loday for the technical side of fragrance production.

The American with French parents had already worked as an engineer with the American space agency (NASA) and advised the French fragrance and cosmetics manufacturer Givaudan for several years.

In 2013, the trio founded the perfume label Ex Nihilo on Rue Honoré in Paris.

The Latin name means "out of nowhere," a metaphor for how a fragrance develops when it's let out of the bottle.

But it also stands for the founding of the company.

“We took a maximum risk.

The rent was high, the market was already flooded and the idea of ​​giving young, unknown noses complete creative freedom was more than unusual,” Verdier recalls.

But the plan worked.

Through her work for Givaudan, the engineer Loday had contact with their young “noses”, as the perfumers are called, who had just come out of their training with new ideas.

For example, the then 28-year-old Quentin Bisch developed "Fleur narcotique", which envelops the exotic scent of lychee with a pink cloud of peony notes and, supplemented with bergamot and orange blossom, makes it a radiant, almost Mediterranean summer perfume.

"The fragrance is now one of our best-selling fragrances," says Verdier.

It probably also helped that the model and it girl Hailey Baldwin mentioned in an interview with the "New York Times" a few years ago that this perfume was her favorite fragrance and that she had flown to Paris to buy a new bottle.

This is also a strategy reminiscent of the Tesla comparison:

While Verdier travels through Germany to present his brand in Munich at Oberpollinger, in Berlin KaDeWe and in Frankfurt Perfumery Albrecht, the latest ex-Nihilo perfume "In Paradise Riviera" pops up on the Instagram channels of some fragrance influencers.

The special edition combines the tropical scent of tiaré flowers with tuberose and is intended to evoke memories of a hot afternoon on the French Riviera.

"After Corona, we all longed for something bright," says Verdier, "a scent that isn't too dark or complicated, but just makes you smile."

"In Paradise Riviera" by Ex Nihilo costs 260 euros for 100 ml Eau de Parfum.