Olivia Giacobetti

The daughter of photographer and film director Francis Giacobetti, she was taken on at the age of 17 by the Grasse perfumer Robertet. Seven years later, she founded her own perfume composition company, Iskia. Olivia Giacobetti has worked extensively for so-called ‘niche’ perfume brands, such as Diptyque, L’Artisan Parfumeur and Lubin.

She is notably credited with introducing the ‘fig tree’ note to perfumery.

In a 2021 interview with Ksenia Golovanova for Fragrantica, Olivia Giacobetti shared several key reflections on her creative approach:

She describes her approach as free, emotional and poetic: she loves fragrances that tell a story, drawing inspiration from what touches and unsettles her, from fundamental scents with deep meaning — water, wood, sacred scents that are part of our olfactory heritage. Her work feeds on small hidden details, on the invisible. Like a freeze-frame, she seeks to capture a moment or an image, to hold on to a fleeting impression, aiming above all for simplicity — the further she goes, the more she simplifies her formulas to keep only the essential, believing that the more precise an accord, the more expressive it is.

In her view, the biggest mistake one can make when creating something is wanting to please — and it is worse still to seek a common denominator to please everyone, which leads to banality by smoothing everything out to keep only universal codes. She aligns her creations with her own desires, and the more personal a perfume becomes, the more surprised she is that it finds its audience.