The famed works of the Louvre Museum now have their own unique scents, thanks to creative entrepreneur Ramdane Touhami.
Touhami’s Paris-based perfumery L’Officine Universelle Buly has created eight different perfumes inspired by the celebrated art of figures like Jean-Honore Fragonard and Lorenzo Bartolini. To this end, Buly gave eight French perfumers the creative freedom to create scents based on any of the 35,000 exhibited works.
The perfumers could reinterpret any of them as a smell – except the Mona Lisa. That would have been “far too obvious,” says Touhami. But he admits that he loves the idea that someone could say, “‘Oh, I wear Venus de Milo,’ or ‘I wear the Valpinçon Bather’ or ‘The Lock.’”
The Louvre collaboration adds to the growing popularity of Buly’s aromatic potions, powders, soaps and perfumes. “The world wants Paris. And we sell Paris: a fantasy of Paris,” says Touhami.
Ramdane Touhami Presides over A Parisian Beauty Empire
Touhami developed an appreciation for the beautiful at a young age. In fact, the French-Moroccan teenager dropped out of technical school at the age of 17 to launch his own parody T-shirt brand, Teuchiland. Although the start-up ultimately failed, it set Touhami’s future in the field of fashion and beauty.
Then in 2014, Touhami and his wife Victoire de Taillac founded Buly as an apothecary-inspired beauty company. The brand quickly took off and now operates worldwide, including Tokyo, Copenhagen, and San Francisco.
The idea for Buly was inspired Honoré de Balzac’s 1837 novel César Birotteau about a celebrity Parisian perfumer. After discovering that the character was based on a master perfumer named Jean-Pierre Bully, Touhami acquired the name. The brand’s 2,000-square-foot headquarters in Paris includes a 19th-century-style boutique that pays homage to Jean-Pierre Bully and his skin tonic, Vinaigre de Bully.
Touhami’s Louve Partnership is a Celebration of Fusion Culture
With experience in the fashion, art, beauty, and PR industries – not to mention living homeless on the streets of Paris for a year – Touhami now presides with his wife over a beauty empire.
Their collaboration with the Louvre represents a larger cultural shift at France’s premier art museum. The 226-year old Parisian institution’s merchandising “has been a bit classic,” explains de Taillac. She notes that Touhami represents a modern fusion of street, skateboarding, and hip-hop cultures. In fact, Touhami initially rose to prominence designing streetwear.
Partnering with Touhami represents a new cultural fusion for the Louvre. For example, the museum has taken steps to try and connect with the modern era, including the recently launched 90-minute guided tour based on the 17 pieces of art featured in the Jay-Z and Beyoncé video. The Buly perfumes have taken that mix of high-art and pop-culture to the next level.
Ramdane Touhami Lives Life to the Fullest
Touhami acknowledges a near-fatal stabbing he suffered while living homeless in Paris made him appreciate life, scents, colors and sights with greater intensity. “When you almost die, you embrace life,” he says.
Touhami’s devotion to beauty and quality uniquely equip him to capture the tenor of the Louvre in a new way. And he doesn’t see his background in skatewear and street fashion as at all at odds with the classic art image of the Louvre.
“It’s the same,” he insists. “There’s a big connection between my skate brand and what I do now… My slogan was ‘French Savoir Faire.’ We created our own French style with a twist.”
The designer’s art-inspired scents can be found at Buly 1803, just across the Seine from the Louvre in downtown Paris.
