DOMINIQUE ROPION

The nose behind And The World Is Yours, Messy Sexy Just Rolled Out Of Bed and What We Do In Paris Is Secret.

HIS STORY

“Even as a child, I could smell everything, even a handshake!” Dominique Ropion says amused, “I saw the world through its odours more than its perfumes…. Ironical for a Parisian who grew up with a mother and a grandfather who both worked for Roure in Argenteuil, one of the most important perfume companies of the 20th century. “I was very much aware of the profession very early on but the idea only came to me much later” he resumes a bit astonished. Even though I had had many summer jobs at Roure, once I passed my baccalaureate, I decided to study physics and become an engineer…”

At once an excellent team player and an imposing soloist, Dominique Ropion is considered to be one of the most technically advanced perfumers of all time by some respected industry experts.  His profound knowledge of French perfumery and his singular versatility in creating scents are his critical contributions to many current significant projects.  Wild at heart, he is not averse to executing surprising twists.  What We Do In Paris Is Secret goes one step further.  It unveils what lies under the perfumer’s virtuosic skill – the secret of a perfumer’s soul.

After working as an engineer, he spent three years training in Grasse, followed by a job as a junior perfumer at Roure in Argenteuil. With his first projects came his first successes and Dominique was able to demonstrate his talent with home fragrances and then hairspray and shampoo. Proud of his first experiences, he remembers them as important steps in his career: “quite a few technical difficulties and not many raw materials, it was very interesting and extremely educative. I even made a toilet cleaner based on a famous women’s fragrance which I was very proud of,” he whispers with the joy of a magician thrilled with his latest trick. Luck put him in the perfumery spotlight again at the beginning of the 80’s. One of his submissions was chosen at the end of a particularly challenging competition by Givenchy and this perfume, Ysatis, was to become one of the stars of the brand. His first masterstoke and at 27, the young perfumer suddenly became famous “the doors were flung wide open for me in the world of perfume – I had suddenly become part of an elite!”

The opportunity which made Dominique Ropion one of the great contemporary perfumers, took the form of a training course at the end of his studies in the chromatography department at Roure where he was asked by Jean Amic, the President at the time, to join the company’s school of perfumery. “I was told this profession was a journey of patience and learning and that fit me like a glove. I met Jean-Louis Sieuzac and Pierre Bourdon (the company perfumers at the time): everything was set up for me and I let myself be convinced” he says.