From Vintage to Visionary: An Interview with Barbara Herman, Founder of ERIS PARFUMS

Barbara Herman is a vintage perfume lover, author, and the creative force behind ERIS PARFUMS. In this interview, she shares her journey from blogging about vintage perfumes to launching a modern fragrance line with master perfumer Antoine Lie.

How has your love for vintage perfumes helped shape ERIS PARFUMS?

I loved the beauty, daring, originality, quality and emotionality of my favorite vintage perfumes. Those are the qualities I want ERIS to live up to.

I think the best of vintage perfumes I encountered told real stories in their compositions — often dramatic and bold stories. You could feel the world and atmosphere the fragrance was trying to envelop you in, the feelings and mood or vibe it wanted to evoke. And the quality of the ingredients, usually a studied and balanced combination of naturals and synthetics, was discernable. There was also, generally, a beginning, a middle, and an end. The fragrance developed over time. That doesn’t always happen now.
So I and Antoine Lie try to impart drama, originality, boldness into each fragrance, created with amazing ingredients. For my part, I like provocative names, ideas, and stories that create a kind of anticipation for what’s to come, like the title of a book or movie.



Whether or not an ERIS fragrance is for you, we want the perfumes to impact you, to make you feel something, and hopefully, to make you think they’re beautiful and unusual, something you have never smelled before. An ERIS perfume fan once described an ERIS scent by saying, “It’s not for everyone, but you’ll know if it’s for you.” This to me describes all of ERIS…you’ll know. It’s almost as if it chooses you, your skin, to either smell great on, rather than the other way around.

In a world full of different perfumes, what makes the brand stand out?

I would say the ERIS signature is that the fragrances are bold (often with an overdose of an ingredient or accord), complex, and sophisticated. We’re not trying to flatten the fragrance profile to suit as many people as possible.

Also, because of Antoine Lie’s perfumery style, no matter how complex the fragrances, they feel transparent, abstract, and modern. You can look at the ingredient list and wonder how the  multitude of ingredients can feel so light and airy instead of a dense mess on your skin. That’s Antoine’s artistry. I also think ERIS fragrances are pretty sexy, even the light ones.

Can you share how you go about creating a new scent?

It’s not a linear process, but it usually starts with the combination of an idea of what kind of ingredients and vibe I want along with a perfume name. Sometimes (often, actually) the perfume name comes to me first. I’m a writer, so the words help guide my ideas on everything else, including visuals.

Then I’ll come up with a list of vintage perfumes in that fragrance category that I like, maybe some contemporary perfumes, too, and then I’ll describe what I want in the best way I can to Antoine, including how I want the fragrance to differ from others in the category.

Then, I send him a mood board consisting of film stills, fashion shots, book covers, ingredients, color stories, etc. that convey the mood, style, world of that fragrance. A whole synaesthetic world is presented to him, and then he goes from that information I provided.

Antoine will send me the first mods or modifications (lab samples) from Paris (I’m in New York), and we’ll talk about what I like and don’t, and this continues until I pick the one that best expresses the original idea. The longer we continue to work together, the better I think I’ve gotten at figuring out what I want and how to express it to him. Learning by doing…

If there are a few mods I’m having a hard time deciding among, I’ll test them on friends, neighbors, sometimes random people on the street, to get their feedback. I’ll wear it and see how it develops. (Antoine’s fragrances morph so much! They’re shapeshifters! So you have to really give them time.) But at the end, I have to pick the one I think best expresses the original idea. It’s always a surprise —and a good one! — with Antoine’s gorgeous work.

How do you mix the bold feel of old-school perfumes with modern tastes to attract perfume lovers?

As I mentioned, ERIS is inspired by vintage perfume’s boldness, quality, story-telling, and originality. With the exception of the first three ERIS fragrances, in the “La Belle et la Bête” collection, that explicitly referenced the vintage floral animalic category (Belle de Jour, Night Flower, Ma Bête), ERIS isn’t vintage-y.

And even with that first collection, Antoine’s style of perfumery is transparent, abstract, and very modern. His technical balance of synthetics with naturals is unmistakably modern.

Can you share an interesting story or experience you've had while creating a fragrance?

Well, I’ll give you a teaser of the next fragrance, which comes out in July of this year, without giving you exact details. For this next fragrance, I wanted an accord created of an ingredient Antoine had never smelled before! So I had this ingredient shipped to him. He studied it, and created something magnificent I cannot wait to share!

What are your dreams for the future of ERIS PARFUMS?

I just want to be able to create more beautiful fragrances with Antoine, to have the line in more retail spaces around the world with sales people who truly love perfume sharing it with their clients. I eventually want to have my own retail space somewhere. I could see fabulous events in this space! A gathering space not only for commerce, but for community, education and exploration.