Corps Volatils
Twelve naturals, twelve synthetics, equal billing.
Corps Volatils was conceived by Nicolas Chabot — the creative force behind the revival of Le Galion and the synthetic-forward house Æther — and launched in July 2020 after two years of development in partnership with IFF-LMR Naturals. Its premise is austere and liberating in equal measure: twenty-four fragrances, twelve built from 100% natural raw materials and twelve from 100% synthetic molecules, each one a single-ingredient study that treats laboratory flowers and forest extracts with identical reverence. The perfumers Chabot recruited — Caroline Dumur, Jean-Christophe Hérault, Domitille Michalon-Bertier, Nicolas Beaulieu, and Julien Rasquinet — were given a strict brief: celebrate one material, fully, without distraction. The result is both a curriculum and a collection, each bottle an argument that the binary between nature and chemistry is a false one. For the curious newcomer, Corps Volatils works as an olfactory glossary; for the seasoned enthusiast, it reads as a series of propositions. The packaging is deliberate and spare, keeping the ingredient at the centre of attention. The house sits within the broader project of making perfumery's raw materials visible rather than absorbed into seamless blends.
