From Grasse to Shanghai: MATIERE PREMIERE brings its raw-material philosophy to Asia

For a fragrance flagship, 28 square meters feels unusually restrained, especially at a time when brands are using bigger retail spaces to make a statement about scale and ambition. On Shanghai’s Donghu Road, a street known for its neoclassical charm and cosmopolitan romance, a compact perfume boutique has appeared, with a minimalist yet sensorial aesthetic. This is MATIERE PREMIERE’s first flagship store in Asia and its first outside Europe. The independent French house’s pared-back store design echoes its approach to fragrance: stripping each scent back to its very starting point, the raw ingredient. From farm to bottle: Building a scent world around one ingredient MATIERE PREMIERE translates into “raw material” and, as the name suggests, it makes natural ingredients the protagonist of fragrance. Founded in 2019, the young label has already made a name for itself by building each fragrance around a single raw material used in its highest possible dosage, allowing its character, texture, and complexity to come through with a striking fullness. “Highlighting a single ingredient means we use a significant quantity of the absolute of one ingredient in each perfume. When I create it in overdose, I have to deal with the good side of the raw material but also the bad side, which gives the fragrance personality,” MATIERE PREMIERE founder and perfumer Aurélien Guichard tells Jing Daily. Guichard is the only perfumer in the world to cultivate his own fragrance ingredients. In Grasse, a historic town whose perfume industry dates back to the 16th century, he grows rose centifolia, tuberose, and lavender exclusively for the brand’s hero fragrances, including Radical Rose, French Flower, and the newly launched Metal Lavender. Founded in 2016, his farm has since grown into one of the largest organic flower farms in southern France. “Picking up a rose every morning in May and a tuberose in August or September is something that no one can buy as a business model,” Guichard says, adding that creating something real, laid back, and understandable can help people connect raw materials with finished perfumes. The “single, overdosed, raw” philosophy creates a significant point of differentiation in China as younger consumers are increasingly drawn to a sense of raw, unvarnished vitality amid a broader desire for ease and authenticity. The intimacy with raw materials is rooted in his own path into perfumery. Growing up in a family with seven generations of perfumers and ingredient growers, Guichard was exposed to both sides of fragrance from an early age: cultivating ingredients and composing scents. He trained at Givaudan Perfumery School, the industry’s most selective training grounds, before creating some of modern perfumery’s most iconic fragrances for major luxury houses, including Gucci Guilty, Versace Eros, and Burberry Hero. When asked how these experiences shaped his view of perfumery, Guichard pointed to both the craft he inherited and the entrepreneurial mindset he cultivated along the way. “My father, grandfather, friends of the family are true to their art and gave me the know-how and the vision,” he says. “And working with Versace, Tom Ford, Balenciaga, and others was very inspiring because they are knowledgeable, professional, and entrepreneurial. Spending time with people like them gave me the idea of creating MATIERE PREMIERE.” Experiencing the raw material The brand’s single- and raw-material philosophy is fully fleshed out at the new Shanghai flagship store. One side of the store is dedicated to product discovery, presenting the full range of collections, from eau de parfum and extrait de parfum to hair perfume, hand and body products, and candles. A fragrance bar invites visitors to sample 6 ml discovery bottles and curate their own sets of three or six perfumes. The other side, called the “Olfactory Exploration Area,” spotlights the key raw ingredients curated by Guichard. The store’s layout also evolves with the seasons, introducing different ingredient themes that show visitors how perfumery begins with the plant itself. The architecture offers another physical expression of the house’s philosophy. Designed by Halleroed, the Stockholm-based studio known for its work with Acne Studios and Alaïa, the building balances raw materials with refined craftsmanship, combining wood, bronze, grey limestone, and hand-blown red glass. The design also carries through the visual language established across MATIERE PREMIERE’s other flagship stores in Paris, Berlin, and London. This aesthetic resonates with Chinese consumers who are gravitating toward spaces that feel neat and grounded. As Guichard describes, “In this very space, there’s a collection of around 35 materials. People can smell exactly the same materials I work with in my lab. In this way, it’s about sharing with people who we are and what we do.” For him, sharing that ethos matters more than business expansion. The retail design also mirrors a broader shift in the social mood of Chinese urbanites. Consumers are placing greater weight on experiences and emotional value, seeking brands that offer something to feel, discover, and identify with. China’s experience economy soared by 22.6% to RMB 18.4 trillion ($2.8 trillion) in market size in 2025, far exceeding the global average, according to a report by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. iiMedia Research, a domestic market consultancy, projects the market will expand to RMB 60 trillion by 2035. Fragrance, a fast-growing category in recent years, sits naturally within that shift: intimate, sensorial, and closely tied to emotional states and self-expression. China’s perfume market has grown by more than 20% annually on average over the past five years, according to iiMedia, and surpassed RMB 30 billion ($4.49 million) in value in 2025. At the same time, younger consumers are moving away from the familiar scents of major luxury brands toward more niche, gender-neutral fragrances without complicated notes. From Grasse to Shanghai For a niche fragrance brand posting annual retail sales growth of more than 70%, MATIERE PREMIERE has expanded at a relatively measured pace. Its choice of Shanghai as its first foothold in Asia was equally deliberate. “Shanghai has a traditional modernity, which is very MATIERE PREMIERE. And if you look at its people, you can see a sense of style,” says Guichard. The perfumer recently visited the city for the Jing Daily 100 gala, which honored figures driving China’s retail transformation and creative landscape. He was recognized in the Founders category for bringing a rare grower’s perspective to contemporary fragrance and the niche scent market, cultivating his own flowers and centering his creations on exceptional natural ingredients. The choice of Donghu Road, in the former French Concession, was just as considered. For Guichard, the appeal lies in its vibrance, intimacy, and mixed scenes, surrounded by “cool restaurants and cafés we want to partner with.” “Finding places of life is important because people need to feel connected when they come to your store,” he adds. MATIERE PREMIERE’s entry into China was supported by its partnership with Next Beauty, a local brand management agency that brought market expertise and a shared vision for the brand’s growth. The fragrance player positions the new flagship as the first step in a broader push across Asia, which it identified as a key growth market and an area of continued investment. Looking ahead, Guichard plans to open more stores in top department stores in second-tier cities while deepening MATIERE PREMIERE’s presence in metropolises. That said, Guichard does not see China as just a market but as a community of people increasingly looking for something unique. “So the more unique you can be in your creation, the better it is,” he says, emphasizing the importance of maintaining quality, creativity, and uniqueness as the brand grows. This focus gives MATIERE PREMIERE a clear creative identity in China’s increasingly crowded fragrance market, where niche labels are multiplying and luxury houses continue to expand their fragrance portfolios through both established lines and new launches. Against this backdrop, the brand’s emphasis on raw ingredients and a stripped-back approach offers a distinct way of defining luxury fragrance today.

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From Grasse to Shanghai: MATIERE PREMIERE brings its raw-material philosophy to Asia