In St. Petersburg, during the gala diner, I held a speech. The only recommendation given to me was “make it beautiful”. Thus, I was free to speak for 10 min about my passion and what I feel when it comes to creating perfumes. In the following, you find my English text of this evening. I like it very much. You find in it my perspective of perfumery, and I will use a few elements for a little card that I wish to create in the next weeks. I feel, I can hold this speech to you now….Thus, there we go….

A JOURNEY THROUGH FRAGRANT KINGDOMS

Ladies and Gentlemen
It is with great pleasure that I am here with you and it is with greatest honor that I speak to you.
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Today, at the occasion of this wonderful banquet, in a lovely environment, with delicious food, exciting drinks, and in beautiful company, I wish to seduce you.
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I would like to take to by the hand and together, we will make a journey to fragrant land. It is the kingdom where perfumes are born.
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But I must warn you: It is a dangerous journey. Once we are on our way to this faraway place, you may not want to come back, because it is warm and cozy, and here it is cold!
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This fragrant land is -of course!- an imaginary kingdom. And you can only get there in your fantasy.
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In these kingdoms where perfumes are born everything is possible. In these kingdoms, where perfumes are born, we draw pictures with scents.
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Every perfumer, every nose works like this. We paint pictures with scents. We create melodies with fragrant notes, we compose music with these melodies.
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Now, close your eyes and dream a dream of Morocco. Imagine you are in your hotel, in your elegant suite, after a long hot day in the Saharan desert. You are lying on your bed, the door to the terrasse is wide open.
The warm evening wind blows and flows into the spacey suite where you are on the bed. It carries the air from the desert, the bright memories of a long dry day in the sun, it brings with it the spices from the oriental bazaar, it carries the scent of the jasmine bush that is flowering in the garden below. It is sweet from the perfume of the warm cookies out of the oven in the bakery around the corner.
It is a dry fragrance that fills the room and that makes you dream a dream in a dream.
This Moroccan dream you will find in my fragrance L’air du desert marocain.
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Maybe this is the biggest fascination of creating art and perfumes: All of us, we are all free to dream and create.
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We can imagine a cowboy, after a long ride on his horse, in the sunset, under a clear sky, smoking his cigarette. We can dream a green garden full of roses without thorns.
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We can imagine a fluffy oriental carpet, flying over old Persan cities, leaving a trail of rose petals like a gleaming comet.
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Being a perfumer, I have the privilege to create these fragrant images. Being an artist, working independently in freedom, I can compose what I want to create.
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Let me quote here the words of Cyrano de Bergerac, who was a poet, philosopher, inventor and simply a free man:
“Dream, laugh, go lightly, solitary, free,
With eyes that look straight forward – fearless voice!
To cock your beaver just the way you choose, – ”
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I do not have to compromise. I choose the colors and the shapes. I draw the light and the shadow.
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Of course, this is not easy. It may take for years to finish a perfume. Sometimes, I may never arrive at the point where I am satisfied. It is a long, adventurous, and maybe strenuous journey for perfumers in the kingdom of fragrances.
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But when we reach our goal and look at what we have created, then we are truly happy. Once the fragrant picture is finished, I pour the liquid image into a flacon. And the flacon will be like a frame that highlights the fragrant picture.
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After a long journey, in the end, this fragrant portrait develops in front of your nose.
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These fragrant images are full of emotions. A flacon with perfume is magic in a bottle. And yet, each perfume is not finished. It is you who continues to draw the picture in your fantasy.
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Perfumes are made for people. Skin is the canvas for perfumes. It is the warm skin that presents perfumes to the real world.
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The skin and the perfume unify and the beauty of the fragrant picture transforms the wearer of the perfume. The perfume and the human being become one.
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Perfumes evoke emotion, they make you smile and this renders the fragrant pictures alive.

I  thank you!
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(Andy Tauer’s speech held in St. Petersburg, February 18 2011)