Olivier Polge

About Olivier Polge

Olivier Polge is CHANEL's In-House Perfumer-Creator and head of its Fragrance Creation and Development Laboratory. He treats perfume not as a list of materials but as an expression closer to the construction of clothing or the writing of a score.

Career

Born in Grasse in 1974, Polge studied art history and maintained a close relationship with music. A laboratory placement around the age of twenty redirected him toward perfumery. He learned materials and production at Charabot and ACM, then joined IFF in 1998. After roughly sixteen years of experience in New York and Paris, he entered CHANEL in 2013 and succeeded his father Jacques Polge as head of fragrance creation and development in 2015.

Creative Style & Philosophy

Music and perfume share notes, harmony, repetition, and silence, so he builds formulas like scores. The task is not only to preserve old formulas but to ask what their structures can say now, adjusting citrus light, floral breath, and the movement of woods. Chance in materials and bodily sensation remain important; intellectual design is not separated from sensual experience.

Signature Works

• *Gabrielle CHANEL* — White flowers composed not as one center but as a ring of light.
• *1957* — White musks and florals made into a luminous abstraction on skin.
• *BLEU DE CHANEL L'EXCLUSIF* — Woods and amber renewed with dense, smooth definition.