Richard Herpin

Names: Richard Herpin (English, French) · Рішар Ерпен (Ukrainian) · Ришар Эрпен (Russian)
Born: Cannes, France
Specialization: perfumer at Firmenich; author of Tom Ford Oud Wood and of fragrances for Amouage, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Van Cleef & Arpels

Born and raised in Cannes, in the very heart of perfume country. As a child he lived among the antiques in his father's shop — hence his love of beautiful things and the smell of noble wood. His mentor was the master Pierre Bourdon, who taught him to capture the essence of a fragrance and discard superfluous details. For more than 25 years he has created fragrances for global houses — from mass-market hits to niche masterpieces. His best-known work is Oud Wood for Tom Ford (2007), the fragrance that made oud popular in Western perfumery.

Herpin works like a jazz musician: spontaneously, emotionally, improvising. He believes that a fragrance never sounds the same on two people and keeps changing on the skin. His compositions are architectural and clean — noble wood, oud, spices, nothing superfluous — and their strength lies in exactly this concision.