Maia Lernout | Perfumer

A visual education and a search for light in fragrance

Maïa Lernout grew up among artistic women. Her great-grandmother studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, while her mother was a painter. Evenings in her mother’s studio connected visual art with the smells of eucalyptus and charcoal sketches.

Lernout trained at ISIPCA and developed a professional career associated with houses including Takasago. Her interest in ballet, opera and haute couture reflects a broader attraction to creative disciplines in which imagination and rigorous practice work together.

For Molton Brown, Flora Luminare explores the tiare flower through a bright, expansive floral composition. The house’s profile describes her interest in natural ingredients and the expression of joy through scent. Her work can be understood as an attempt to give that visual and emotional education an olfactory form: selecting materials, arranging their relationships and finding a sense of light and movement within a finished perfume.