PARIS — Renaud Salmon, the creative force behind niche fragrance brand Amouage, has cofounded an independent design practice called Atelier d’Ingénierie Fades, focused on the objects and spaces perfumery inhabits.
These include professional instruments, furniture and immersive sensory installations meant to translate scent’s ephemeral nature into tangible objects.
Dimitry Hlinka, a French designer and multidisciplinary craftsman, whose works span industrial design and furniture, is the other cofounder of the atelier, also known as AIF, which is based between Paris and Muscat, where Amouage is headquartered. Hlinka has had residencies at Villa Albertine, Villa Kujoyama and was a laureate of the Prix Bettencourt Dialogues.
This summer, AIF is expected to have a soft opening of its first public-facing physical space, in Paris.
“I am convinced about the importance of innovation in perfumery,” Salmon said. The Belgian has since 2019 served as chief creative officer of Amouage, now among the leading niche labels in perfumery. It is supporting the new project. L’Oréal took a minority stake in the label in 2025.
“When innovation is done right in a category, it can change dramatically the dynamics,” Salmon said.
“Also, I wanted to create more bridges with other adjacent industries that I think are very important in the world of luxury,” he added. “Not only is it necessary to create innovation in perfumery, but it’s also necessary to connect new communities and new audiences to the world of perfumery.”
Bringing design and architecture into the fold has always been a strategy of Salmon at Amouage. He said he’d like to be even more proactive about it, but to do that, he needed a structure.
“I needed a new canvas,” Salmon said. “It could not exist inside Amouage.”
That opens the possibility of working with other brands and companies. “It would obviously benefit Amouage one way or another,” said Salmon, who remains at the helm of the brand’s creative vision.
He decided to establish a creative atelier, which quickly blossomed to be more than that, encompassing a dedicated space in Paris. There, the intention is to blend the professional and public realms.
On the professional side, the atelier will center on the three areas of research.
“The first one is everything that has to do with professional tools of perfumery,” Salmon said, explaining over the past five to 10 years, the role of perfumers has massively changed. Today and in the future they and everyone else related to fragrances, such as evaluators and artistic directors, are becoming the real voices of the industry, he explained.
“It’s not only about brands anymore,” Salmon said. “Their tools and the way they are portrayed has not been reconsidered.”
From a practical point of view, as well as a communication and image vantage point, there is a need to reinvent perfumery’s professional tools. That could include lab coats, blotter holders, fragrance vials and lab samples.
“Ultimately, perfumers should be surrounded by tools that maximize their creativity and should live in an inspiring creative universe,” Salmon said.
He is hopeful there is room for a professional brand in perfumery that would be the equivalent of, say, Stockman, when it comes to dress forms in fashion.
“You see those mannequins everywhere in pictures of high-end brands,” Salmon said. They weren’t made to be consumer-facing tools but have become them.
AIF’s second focus is on furniture, “not only in the sphere of professional perfumery, but also in retail,” Salmon said. On that he’s working with Hlinka, who Salmon describes as probably the most talented person he knows for working with one’s hands and designing.
Salmon and Hlinka have already teamed up on several pieces of furniture, including Amouage’s interactive tables in-store.
“It became quickly obvious that there must be a way to reinvent furniture ergonomics, but also design of perfumery furniture,” Salmon said.
The need for that is linked to the fragrance category’s evolution. It was historically part of three axes, including also makeup and skin care. A brand’s retail architecture reflected that.
“Furniture is somehow — in the best examples — disappearing in a way or turning into objects, turning into entertainment, becoming an excuse to portray the creative universe of a product,” Salmon said.
From a technical and craft point of view, most brands need to produce their furniture at a large scale. For most retailers, furniture must meet a host of criteria.
“In the end, it limits the creativity in perfumery,” Salmon said. “So the practice wants to get rid of that.”
In the same way marquetry revolutionized furniture design, allowing for lighter pieces that could have specific finishes, Salmon and Hlinka are convinced that the world of large-scale 3D printing, together with luxury finishes such as lacquering, will give the possibility for the creation of extremely light structures that are highly resistant and with new ergonomics and aesthetics.
A 3D printer.
Photo by Elena Zinkevych/Courtesy of Amouage
“Today, when we look at the evolution of 3D printing, we can now print with fully sustainable materials,” Salmon said. Five-axes machines allow for the development of shapes impossible before. There is the ability to create made-to-measure furniture at a large scale.
That could be a retail game-changer. “It would potentially give us the possibility to print and finish to the millimeter based on each space,” Salmon said. “Ultimately, it will lead to something standing out, surprising potentially to shoppers and also supporting in the best way possible a sales associate or consultant with the ergonomics.”
Three-dimensional printing will help him try to bring personalization to the next level, too.
The atelier is also centered on the world of multisensory experiences.
“This is where I see bigger than the perfume industry,” Salmon said, noting the industry has been in small ways trying to bring the invisible of smell to life with physical elements like art and sound. He is often asked to scent an art piece, song or hotel, so the demand exists.
“There is a need, and the world wants to add the scent aspect to any type of experience,” Salmon said. “The limitations are real today. That’s why I need to invent the future of those technologies.”
It is, for instance, difficult to scent a large-volume space quickly then remove the smell fast. Imagine at a concert of the future, each song might be accompanied by a scent.
“It would be magical,” Salmon said. “I want to bring my multisensorial understanding of smell to large audiences, to ambitious artistic projects. And by doing so, it will bring a bigger audience to the world of perfumery.”
People could realize perfume can be part of their life, part of how they consume media daily. Salmon will be researching this, among other topics.
The Paris-based atelier will be proof of concept of this third, multisensory branch. Spanning about 2,150 square feet over two levels, it is based in the 12th arrondissement, in a space dedicated by the city to artists and craftsman.
“It blends all of my convictions together,” Salmon said. The atelier is to be a professional and design research location, with advanced machines, which visitors can see through windows or visit during scheduled times.
“More and more clients are interested in the behind the scenes,” Salmon said.
AIF is open to collaborations and commissions.
It will become a multisensorial performance space when open to the public for performances, which are set to start in fall. These are expected to include visual elements — potentially the 3D machines performing — smell and sound.
“The sound design will be top-notch,” Salmon said. “If you are an artist, this might be one of the first spaces, if not the first, in the world where you can perform leveraging all of the senses.”
An artist can work with AIF to bring a scent component to their performance.
A 3D extrusion of Atelier d’Ingénierie Fades’ logo
Photo by Elena Zinkevych/Courtey of Amouage
Salmon has artists say to him: “I’ve never had the possibility to move people with the smell of my songs.”
At least one perfumer will be linked to the atelier, as will people from other disciplines, such as tech.
At AIF, performances might be attended by 20 to 50 people. “If that experience can live in the space of the atelier, there is potentially no reason that it could not be scaled up to bigger entertainment or cultural spaces.”
There will likely be a small retail component in the AIF, where people can purchase items such as perfumery products and other objects.
“That could be the beginning of some work on fragrances, as well,” Salmon said. “They will be representative of the spirit of the space.”
He has noticed that professional sound design is now a fully integrated part of set design for luxury brands’ fashion shows.
“The genius that happened to music is that some designers started to design sound visually, and all of a sudden, sound became an object,” Salmon said. “Sound became an intentional piece of design.
“What about smell design?” he continued. “I want to design smell. I want to give a materiality to smell.”
That’s why AIF’s name has “Fades” in it. “I want to materialize something that is beautiful but heartbreaking because it fades,” Salmon said.
He contends smell’s intangibility holds fragrance back from being an even bigger category than it is today.
AIF, Salmon believes, is more than an atelier. “It’s a brand,” he said.
