Behind the fragrances of Plume Impression are often personal memories and experiences shared by Sabine Schaffer and Gabriel Chami, the founders of the brand. Together with renowned perfumers such as Quentin Bisch, Jordi Fernandez and Mark Buxton, they translate them into a variety of olfactory stories.
I spoke with Sabine about the DNA of Plume Impression, working with perfumers and the stories behind some of the brand’s fragrances. She also gave me a glimpse of what Plume Impression has in store for November – and it’s going to be really exciting.
Have you read these yet?
• The Plume Impression Collection – The Magic of Fragrances
• Interview with Mark Buxton – The Perfumer Behind Gravel’s Eau D’Ivine and Eau D’Éclat
• Interview with Marc-Antoine Barrois – Bespoke Fragrance Masterpieces
• The Man Who Dances with Molecules – Perfume Artist Geza Schön on the New Molecule + Fragrance Line
Dear Sabine, Plume Impression is all about the feather—something delicate and light that can also be surprisingly strong. How is this duality reflected in the olfactory identity of your fragrances?
The essence of Plume Impression is perfectly captured by our feather – sheer, airy and refined, while projecting a certain charisma and character. This is what our fragrances are all about. We create scents that have a strong personality and presence while retaining that sophisticated, elegant character.
Our motto is: “A scent doesn’t need to shout to leave a (Plume) impression.”
The shared memories, emotions, and experiences of the two of you are at the heart of Plume Impression. What makes a personal memory so special that it becomes the inspiration for a fragrance?
In theory, every moment is worth capturing. But of course, we would have a really big fragrance library then! So unfortunately, we have to pick and choose.
There is no actual guideline for doing so, but of course we always come across experiences that we feel are really special. One example was a trip to beautiful “La Serenissima” – the city of Venice.
When we arrived there for the first time, we were really struck by the beauty of the city and all the small alleys and hidden corners. Now imagine the vibrancy of the city during the Venetian Carnival: lots of intriguing masks, mystery everywhere and a certain, special scent lingering in the air.
This is when we came up with the idea for Dualité Magnifique. A modern Rose Oud in a different interpretation – the softness of petals, the green stem with its thorns, paired with an intriguing, spicy touch of woods. Like the Venetian masks, it possesses two faces: softness and power, elegance and character.
Dualité Magnifique celebrates the fascinating contrasts that shape beauty: what is revealed and what is hidden, delicacy and power, light and shadow.
Once you’ve found a memory or a special moment like that: How do you translate something so personal into a briefing that a perfumer can understand, without taking away their creative freedom?
Yes, this is then step two in the process – speaking to the perfumer we think would be best suited to work with my idea and recreate what I’m trying to make them envision.
We are lucky to work with great master perfumers who are equally creative personalities. It makes it a lot easier to share a rather unusual idea.
Since we have already worked with most of them several times, we know their preferences and strengths when it comes to certain fragrance profiles.
Of course, they have the freedom to interpret my story in their own way, and I’m always amazed by the different outcomes. After the first suggestions, we sit down and brainstorm to see how we can further develop our ideas and bring them to life together.
It’s an exciting journey and quite a lengthy process until we finally present the fragrance.
You work with renowned perfumers such as Quentin Bisch, Jordi Fernandez, and Mark Buxton, all of whom have a very distinctive style. How do you decide which perfumer is the best fit for a particular idea?
We are lucky to have been working with all of them for quite a while now. Over time, you get to know their preferences and their favourite ingredients, if they have any. So, based on our idea for a fragrance, I usually know who would be the best person to approach for a particular project.
Murmure d’Été was the first fragrance in the collection and was originally your very own personal fragrance, Sabine. When you look at Plume Impression today, does Murmure d’Été still embody the house’s DNA for you, or has that DNA changed over the years?
Yes, it still perfectly embodies what we stand for – light and airy, yet full of character.
As you correctly said, Murmure d’Été was the first fragrance in our collection, and it was my personal scent before we launched it with Plume Impression.
In that sense, it will always have a special place and remain the brand’s signature scent.
Overall, our brand ethos is to stay away from marketing trends and to create fragrances where refinement meets boldness and gentleness converges with intensity. So even if the scent profiles change, the overall core DNA will remain.
Is there a fragrance in today’s collection that has taken Plume Impression in a direction you yourselves wouldn’t have originally anticipated—and that may even have changed your own perspective on the brand?
I’d say Royal Bourbon is exactly that kind of scent. With its launch, we ventured into more opulent territory, setting it apart from our core collection.
It carries a bolder, more intense presence than our other fragrances – a powerful, refined scent that evokes luxury, mystery and a sensuality that brings together all of our brand’s attributes.
The concept of luxury in perfumery has changed significantly over the years. What does olfactory luxury mean to you today, and how does Plume Impression express your own understanding of it?
Plume Impression speaks to a new generation of luxury: one that values authenticity over convention and emotion over excess.
It invites the wearer to carry their essence anytime, anywhere, embracing fragrance as an extension of their identity rather than an accessory.
If someone were discovering Plume Impression for the very first time, which three fragrances would you choose to show them the full range of the brand—and why those three in particular?
My first suggestion would definitely be Murmure d’Été. As mentioned above, it perfectly embodies all of the brand’s attributes. And with Quentin Bisch as the perfumer behind this creation, we have a celebrated master perfumer who is known throughout the fragrance community.
Second would be Pop Heart – a fragrance full of life and colourful moments that brings a smile to everyone’s face. A vibrant, playful fragrance where each note expresses a facet of joy, passion and seduction – just like those beautiful moments we want to cherish forever.
And lastly, Royal Bourbon for its more opulent approach within our collection. It has won several awards within the fragrance community and showcases a different side of Plume Impression: deeper in character and more powerful, while still retaining the classic sophistication of our brand.
Many of Plume Impression’s fragrances begin with a moment, a place, or an unexpected sensory experience. Has anything come your way lately that made you think right away, “This could become a perfume”? And might we one day see it in your collection?
In November, we are launching an entirely new chapter within Plume Impression: our “Trilogy – Les Extraits”. Not only will it be visibly different from our core collection, it is also deeply personal to us, as it tells the stories of three different chapters in our lives.
One of the three exciting fragrances will be Coco Cloud. While golfing in the Highlands, in the middle of nowhere, we suddenly smelled a beautiful citrusy, coconut-like scent.
Now imagine you are in the Highlands, surrounded by shrubs, bushes and woods. You would never expect to smell such an exotic scent there. We didn’t know what it was and asked around for a very long time.
It wasn’t until I spoke to our dear friend Danu, a Scottish perfume journalist, that I learned about Scottish gorse and its complex, coconut-like scent.
“Challenge accepted,” I told Gabriel – and here we are, launching our gorse-inspired fragrance in November.
Plume Impression began with your own memories. But as soon as a perfume leaves your hands, it becomes part of other people’s lives and memories. Is there a story about someone wearing one of your fragrances that has particularly stuck with you?
Yes – a woman once wrote to me and told me that she had worn one of our fragrances, Art Nouveau, on the day she got engaged. Now, every time she catches a trace of it, she is instantly taken back to that moment.
It’s such a beautiful thing to witness – a scent I created from my own memories going on to become part of one of someone else’s happiest moments.
That, to me, is the real magic of perfume: it doesn’t just sit on the skin; it becomes woven into the moments that matter most.
Dear Sabine, thank you so much for the wonderful conversation!
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