EX NIHILO is perfume’s provocative outsider
Celebrating its Australian launch in Sydney, co-founder Benoît Verdier chats with Esquire about creating the industry's most disruptive brand
By 
BENOÎT VERDIER remembers the first perfume he ever bought. It was on a trip to New York City where he picked up a fragrance by the Austrian fashion provocateur Helmut Lang. This was the 2000s, when metrosexuals reigned in the fashion capitals, his choice of scent reflecting the changing face of masculinity. The top notes were fresh with florals, evolving into warm sandalwood and patchouli. But its most important proposition was that it was unisex. “It was very daring and innovative,” Verdier recalls. “All the trends [of today] were there.”
It was less the scent but more the attitude of the fragrance that would spur Verdier to create a gender fluid perfume brand of his own. In 2013, with his classmate Olivier Royère and mutual friend Sylvie Loday, EX NIHILO was born. “When we create perfumes, there is, of course, a little dominant [masculine and feminine] notes,” he continues. “But we are absolutely open-minded and we don’t tell the perfumers, ‘This is for women, this is for men’.”
Verdier doesn’t have the classic perfumer background of training in Grasse (the French town is renowned for its long-established perfume industry); he studied political science at Science Po in Paris, where he met Royère. Working in marketing and advertising for luxury brands after university, Verdier grew restless of the desk job. Reconnecting with Royère, they met with Loday, who was working at fragrance manufacturer Givaudan, bonding over their mutual frustration of perfume’s offering at the time. (Verdier grew up in Provence, the heart of perfume country.)
“What makes us different is this forward thinking philosophy to be quite disruptive in the market as we ‘create from scratch’,” he says of the brand name’s Latin translation. This “entrepreneur story” has allowed the trio to think as customers and collectors, as well as perfumers.
It was a bold move for a then infant brand to set up a physical shop, least of all on Rue Saint-Honoré, one of Paris’ main luxury thoroughfares. Flanked by heritage houses – Verdier relishes their outsider status – this would usher in the creation of the Osmologue, EX NIHILO’s innovation in perfume personalisation. “People called us crazy when we created the Osmologue,” he says. “This is an existing technology that you could find in labs, but we managed to downsize it. We managed to make it visually acceptable [for a store].”
Only at their Paris flagship, clients choose from the brand’s existing catalogue to bring under the Osmologue. Likening the experience to buying jewellery or a watch, a consultant present raw materials on a tray as an add-in to boost the perfume according to your taste, like what you’re wearing, and special occasions you’d perhaps wear it to. Verdier describes the process as creating “future memories” to make something new and unexpected. “It’s therapy through memory,” he says, “because of the emotional connection to perfume. But we are never inspired by nostalgia.” The customised perfume would be validated by their roster of perfumers (“It’s not like you and me just adding some drops and saying, ‘Wow, oh la la‘”) before you can wear it.
Working as a collective has been EX NIHILO’s strength. “Since day one, we’ve been surrounded by all these perfumers, plus a crew of creative people,” says Verdier. “We wanted to be very [much] like an open organisation.” Fleur Narcotique, for example, the brand’s first scent, was created by Givaudan alum Quentin Bisch. It’s gone on to become a cultural phenomenon, worn by the likes of Hailey Beiber and American fashion designer Phillip Lim; a seductive floral scent with surprises of lychee and moss, like smelling a poisonous rose. Their perfumers are given carte blanche of raw and synthetic materials with no cost restraints. A start-up by his own admission, EX NIHILO sounds like something out of Silicon Valley (the founders describe EX NIHILO as the ‘Tesla of fragrance’). More than a decade on, despite opening new stores and stockists across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the US, the trio have retained a strong sense of French identity.
Working on the conceptual side of the brand, Verdier finds inspiration from artists and cultural output that align with the brand’s sensibilities – a spirit of the French avant-garde. “The angle is always to be forward thinking, to break the conventions.” A favourite pastime of Verdier’s is visiting the Paris flea market and galleries who specialise in curating works by ’80s renegades like French industrial designer Philippe Starck. A keen collector, Verdier also places these pieces in EX NIHILO stores across the world. “Olivier is also a vintage watch and car collector,” he says. Royère’s collection remains private.
The co-founders have exercised their personal taste to feed back into EX NIHILO. Even as we’re sitting in a ritzy hotel in Sydney’s CBD, its contemporary interior melded into the heritage sandstone building, Verdier is wearing a pair of Travis Scott Air Jordan 1s. “Travis is a disruptor,” he says, tracing the backwards Nike Swoosh with his finger. “We are really connected to this kind of culture and global lifestyle.”
Arriving in the harbour city to celebrate the brand’s launch in Australia with exclusive stockist David Jones, the co-founder now hopes his 12-year-old business is in a place to expand. “Even for a niche [perfumer], you don’t want to be a niche for life,” he admits. “At one point you have to manage to grow while keeping your soul and the brand’s integrity. And that’s what we do . . . We really want to keep this outsider disruptive way of doing things.”
EX NIHILO is now available at David Jones in their Sydney flagship and Bondi Junction, or at davidjones.com.
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