France is well-known for the excellence of its luxury industry. An industry that worldwide generates 92M tons of waste per year. As a niche perfumer with way more budget constraints than major perfume houses, Etat Libre d'Orange needed to be really bold to stand out.?

Our starting point: In a culture driven by overconsumption, we have the tendency to trash things and people very fast, in real and virtual life. Everything that doesn’t fit our perfection is immediately deleted. Everything and everybody will, one day or another, be trashed. Luxury can’t ignore anymore the fact that our planet is not a tonneau des Danaïdes (bottomless pit). It’s a shift that our society needs to take and will.

The idea: We created I AM TRASH, the first ever perfume made from the waste of the perfume industry. By contrasting the brutality of its name with the delicacy of its scent, we reconciliated two opposite notions: perfume and waste. From the scent itself to all the communication around it, we wanted to show that waste can be aesthetic and delightful for all senses.? Launched with never seen before visuals, starring worms and decomposing trash, we challenged conventions of a “fine fragrance”. Discarded ads became new art, trash became perfume.? A bold stand against excessive consumption to prove that the problem is not the trash but how you look at it. Everything and everybody can be beautiful again.

Etat Libre d’Orange (The Free State of Orange) is more of a mindset than a perfume house. Defiance is rooted deep in the Brand’s DNA. They speak to marginals who do not want to fit in with conventional standards. So, getting behind the creation of a fragrance made from waste and agreeing with the Agency’s idea to name the signature scent, I AM TRASH, was embraced as a reflection of the perfumer’s brand values. There’s something almost opposite between waste and luxury.? We wanted to break through this psychological barrier by creating "the most wanted scent, made from the unwanted". To achieve this, we had to reveal the beauty in trash.?

I AM TRASH went on to be the brand's best-selling product in the history of Etat Libre d'Orange, challenged the conventions of fine perfumery, helped to change the way society looks at trash and inspired the industry to come up with ideas that make this planet a safer place. The courageous consumers who sprayed our vision on their skins helped to change the way society looks at trash and inspired other brands to finally make this industry more sustainable. But maybe the thing we're most proud of is that the product we created has started a movement in the fragrance industry that's happening at this very moment. Givaudan is receiving requests from big players in fragrance to develop their own upcycled scents. For us, this movement toward upcycling is not just a result; it's a payback for hard work and good ideas--reassuring us that what we did is anything but trash. (499 words)