Inside Diptyque's world of scent, storytelling, and craftsmanship

With over four decades of olfactory legacy rooted in artistry, memory, and a distinct sense of place. No matter the year or the trend, Diptyque continues to dominate all of our wish lists and our olfactory senses with authentic scents as well as with their reiterations. This year, a revamped set of their classic candles is on the cards. We sit down with Laurence Semichon, CEO of Diptyque, for a deep dive into the Maison’s new launch and the art of staying timeless.

Harper’s Bazaar: You’ve stepped into this role at a time when the brand is trying something new. What felt most important to preserve, and what felt ready to evolve?

Laurence Semichon: What felt most important to preserve was Diptyque’s singular nature as a house of creation. Since 1961, at 34 Boulevard Saint-Germain, Diptyque has cultivated a world of its own, born from the friendship and artistic complicity of Desmond Knox-Leet, Christiane Montadre-Gautrot, and Yves Coueslant. From the beginning, the Maison has never separated fragrance from drawing, object from imagination, or decoration from emotion. What matters deeply to preserve is precisely this creative freedom: the idea that a fragrance is never just a fragrance, and that an object is never purely functional. What felt ready to evolve was not the identity, but the way it continues to inhabit the present. With the candle revamp, for example, the intention was never to change what makes the object instantly recognisable. It was to refine it with precision and humility.

HB: Tell us about the composition of the revamped candles, and the inspiration behind it.

LS: The excellence of our candle lies in the alchemy between the wax and the perfume concentrate, which ensures both faithful diffusion of the scent and optimal burning. For each scent and format, several wax compositions are tested and developed in order to find the ideal balance—the one that guarantees perfect diffusion both cold and hot. The wick itself is chosen according to the character of each scent: its diameter and the weaving of the cotton are specifically adapted.

As part of this new chapter, the Maison is also extending its herbier des senteurs with five new raw materials interpreted as candles: Café, Ortie, Sésame Noir, Rhubarbe, and Shiso. So the inspiration is two-fold: to preserve the excellence of the object itself, and to continue enriching Diptyque’s olfactory language.

HB: How has your understanding of luxury shifted over time? 

LS: It has become less about rarity or status, and more about resonance. At Diptyque, luxury is never reduced to an outward sign. It resides in a way of creating, in the precision of a gesture, and in the dialogue between craft and imagination. It resides in the time given to the object and in the care devoted to its materiality.

HB: Diptyque has always existed at the intersection of art, scent, and storytelling—how do you ensure that balance remains intact as the brand grows globally?

LS: We remain faithful to our creative process. Diptyque was born from artists, and this is not anecdotal. It defines the way the Maison thinks, creates, and expresses itself. From the outset, there has been an alliance of the hand and the nose: the meeting between the visual and the olfactory, between the artist’s gesture and the perfumer’s sensibility. This dialogue is still at the heart of everything we do. The fragrance, the name, the drawing, the object, the way it inhabits a space or accompanies a ritual: all of these are conceived in resonance. That is why Diptyque occupies a singular place, at the crossroads of perfume, decorative arts, and storytelling. As the Maison grows globally, our responsibility is to protect that complexity, not simplify it.

HB: What makes a fragrance truly timeless?

LS: At Diptyque, timelessness often comes from a very particular balance: a fragrance is anchored in something tangible: a flower, a tree, a resin, a leaf, a landscape, a memory, and yet it is never treated literally. It is interpreted. It is given form through a sensibility. This is very much the spirit of Diptyque’s herbier des senteurs, which has been built over time through more than 50 olfactory signatures. It is not a catalogue of ingredients. It is a collection of impressions of nature, translated through the Maison’s own sensibility.

Even with more narrative-driven creations such as Orphéon, we follow the same approach. What makes these scents timeless is precisely that they are not fixed. They are open compositions, built with depth and contrast, that allow each person to experience them differently. Timelessness, in that sense, is not about permanence—it is about the ability of a fragrance to continue to live, to evolve, and to resonate across generations.

HB: Is there a shift in how younger audiences are discovering and wearing fragrance today?

LS: Yes, very clearly. Younger audiences approach fragrance with remarkable freedom. They move easily between fragrance for the self and fragrance for the home. They do not necessarily seek one signature; they seek a more fluid, more personal relationship with scent. This is particularly interesting for Diptyque because the Maison has always had a broader conception of fragrance. From the beginning, Diptyque has considered scent as something that lives both on the skin and in space. That duality feels especially relevant today. Diptyque does not need to reinvent itself to speak to them. It simply needs to remain deeply itself.

HB: If you were to associate one scent with the Indian audience, what would it be and why?

LS: India has such an extraordinary and sophisticated olfactory culture that one could never reduce it to a single scent. In that context, Tam Dao has become something of a local hit. Beyond that, there is, in India, a very refined relationship to perfume, to ritual, to materials, to atmosphere, and I believe this sensitivity speaks naturally to the way Diptyque composes. That idea of complexity, of nuance, of fragrance as experience rather than statement, feels very close to the dialogue Diptyque would want to create with an Indian audience.

Images: Courtesy of the brand

This article originally appeared in Harper's Bazaar India's April-May 2026 print issue.

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