Thierry Wasser

The Guerlain house is a family business that has become a genuine luxury empire. Until now, each of the brand's perfumers has borne the Guerlain family name. Only the current nose of the house departs from this rule. His name is Thierry Wasser and he is considered a kind of spiritual son to the Guerlain family. He owes his position to his talent, not to blood ties. As such, he appears as the worthy successor to an extraordinary success story.

The early career of Thierry Wasser

Thierry Wasser was born in July 1961 in Lausanne, Switzerland. He developed a powerful sense of smell at a very young age and was immediately fascinated by the subject. As a child, he collected herbs which he would then dry. Then, being truly passionate about nature, he turned to the study of botany and received his degree at age 20. Following olfactory tests and training in Paris, he joined the Givaudan company in 1981. Then, eager to advance in the profession, he left France to settle in the United States. In 1993, he joined the Firmenich group in New York and was transferred within the company to Paris in 2002. Then came the time of consecration. Guerlain called on him starting in 2007 to work on two perfumes: Iris Ganache and Quand Vient la Pluie. He developed these two fragrances in collaboration with Sylvaine Delacourte and was hired the following year as director of creation for Guerlain perfumes.

Thierry Wasser at Guerlain

Thierry Wasser is a rare and singular creator. He draws his creativity from his sensitive, refined, elegant and charming personality. This bon vivant nonetheless likes to work with traditional raw materials and strives to remain authentic. Endowed with remarkable olfactory faculties, he represents the fifth generation of perfumers at the Guerlain house. He works like a craftsman and has been entrusted with the highly secret book of Guerlain formulas, passed down from generation to generation within the family. He thus has knowledge of an olfactory heritage unique in the world, containing numerous mysteries. His goal is to pass on this precious legacy to us while delivering it in a modernized form. He is therefore tasked with continuing the work of his illustrious predecessors while adding his personal touch. So far, Thierry Wasser seems to be succeeding brilliantly in this endeavor, and it is notably to him that we owe the iconic Petite Robe Noire.

Thierry Wasser is a talented perfumer, something of a maverick, who possesses a perfect mastery of the art of perfumery combined with natural creativity. He explains that a perfume born of a coincidence comes from an anecdote. It is not something one premeditates, he says. Nevertheless, he readily admits that his success is also the result of the many encounters that have marked his life. For him, if the initial idea, the spark, is born from a single person, one is better off as two when it comes to communicating it.

Mandarin · Bergamot · Lemon