Photograph Antoine Doyen
Joseph Mul stands among rows of flower-laden bushes, keeping close watch over operations. The 30-hectare estate on the edge of Pégomas, a small rural commune in the Côte d’Azur, 10km inland from Cannes, has been in his family since the mid-1800s. Mul, now 86, has spent a lifetime working the land. “I’m the fourth generation,” he explains, though we speak via an interpreter. “My granddaughter, Marika, who also works here, is the sixth.” His two daughters are involved, too, as is his son-in-law, Fabrice, who oversees the farm’s daily operations. “It’s continuity,” says Mul. “Everyone contributes and brings the new, while respecting what came before. It’s as things should be.”
Much has changed in the almost two centuries that the Mul family have farmed here. These fields, once also ripe with fruit and vegetables, today grow plants used only in perfumery. Technology has altered the cultivation process drastically, from the introduction of high-tech underground watering systems to molecular-level testing that allows a single petal’s genetic properties to be probed. Artificial fertilisers and chemical products have been traded for organic, regenerative, low-intervention techniques. And, w While his flowers were once sold on the open market, they’re now supplied exclusively to Chanel – a unique arrangement Mul negotiated with the luxury fashion house in the late 1980s.
The intricate process of hand-harvesting flowers, however, has remained remarkably consistent. In May, the pink Rosa centifolia are plucked during a brief four-week window, and from August through to October attention turns to the white jasmine flowers, in bloom today. It’s mid-September when I visit, harvest season, and the fresh scent of jasmine hangs in the late-summer heat.
By 11am, the 70 or so seasonally employed pickers have already been at work for hours. Most are wearing wide-rimmed caps and football shirts as they move through the same plant-lined paths they walk each day, gathering piles of silky white petals. Paid partly by the weight of what they reap, few seem interested in chatting. A small army of Chanel PRs keeps watch to ensure no faces are photographed.
“From August, we need to collect the flowers daily,” says Mul, “as they’ll grow again tomorrow. Once picked, the buds mature in the afternoon sun, and the flowers then bloom again overnight.” Each picker deposits their petals into individual baskets, the contents of which will be weighed at 1pm when the workday ends. The most experienced workers can collect up to 3.5kg per day. “Jasmine is an extremely delicate flower, and they don’t like being carried,” Mul explains. “The faster they are picked and treated, the higher the quality of the quintessential elements from the flower will be.” Once the weigh-in is complete, the crop is transferred in metal crates to the in-house factory for processing, just a short drive down the road.
Scents and sensibility: the bastide on the Chanel estate, with the legendary ‘double C’ sign
Once the parade of pickers pass es us by, Mul beckons me towards one of the bushes. Heaving with blossoms, it’s roughly 3ft tall. “The jasmine flower sits in a challis,” he explains, waving his walking stick to encourage me closer. “When you pick, you take a flower with a hand on each side, as we have always done. Once you’ve done a few, you’ll feel how fragile they are.” I do as instructed – the flower’s head falls neatly into my palm.
Sweat is seeping through both of our navy shirts now, although Mul seems unfazed by the incessant dripping. Eventually, satisfied that all is as it should be, he guides us towards the relative cool of the estate’s bastide, an elegant stone country house.
The French town of Grasse, which sits in the Alpes-Maritimes, has been considered the world’s perfume capital for centuries. These hills in the French Riviera are ideal for cultivating fragrant plants which thrive in its fertile soil, thanks to its altitude and micro-climate, shielded from rougher coastal air. This history can be traced back to the Middle Ages, when the area, which then specialised in leather tanning, required a steady stream of flowers from local farmers to mask unpleasant bovine odours. By the end of the 18th century, business here had boomed.
“I was born into this world of perfume,” says Mul, now sitting in the shade of a tree, eyes turning occasionally to the fields beyond us. His stick leans against a chair and he adjusts his flatcap. Mul was raised in this village. “From an early age, I would meet all the major figures from Grasse and Paris who would come down here to acquire their essences.”
In 1968, Mul and his brother took over the family firm. The industry was facing a litany of challenges. In the 19th century, perfumers had started sourcing cheaper products from outside France, and the 20th century saw the proliferation of artificial, laboratory-created compounds. “From the 1960s, there was a major shift, and production of flowers in the region reduced,” says Mul. Swathes of farmland were sold off to developers to build lucrative holiday homes. Young farmers, he adds, sold up and moved to cities. “Very few fashion houses continue to use these natural essences,” he says. “We couldn’t and can’t compete on price with other countries with different labour rules and regulations: some products can be purchased for hundreds of times less than we need to charge. But it’s not the same quality.” Mul knew he needed to adapt.
Simultaneously, a similar problem faced Chanel, and its then “nose”, or perfumer-in-chief, Jacques Polge. In 1921, Chanel No 5 had been created for founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel by French-Russian perfumer Ernest Beaux. It had more than 80 separate ingredients in its formula. By the 1980s, the French fashion house was “struggling to find the quantity and quality of jasmine required annually to produce the perfume”.
You cannot just replace the Grasse jasmine with another cheaper flower from overseas. The user will detect the difference
New iterations of the scent see ingredients sourced elsewhere, but No 5 L’Extrait – the signature perfume in its most expensive, luxurious form, only available in standalone Chanel stores – relies on jasmine from this region. Some 1,000 jasmine flowers are required to produce a single 30ml bottle of L’Extrait. Mul likens floral crops to grapes grown in wine-producing vineyards. “Each flower, wherever it’s grown, has its own unique qualities. Much as Burgundy or Rioja wine must be grown in a specific place with its terroir, the same is true for flowers. You cannot just replace this Grasse jasmine with another jasmine – the user will detect a difference.”
Initially, I’m not entirely convinced that most mortal snouts are as discerning, and other jasmines are certainly used in the mass-market versions of No 5. But later, I’m invited to sniff a selection of paper sticks dipped into different scents in a variety of vials. The jasmine from Grasse has fresh, green notes, a touch of green tea. Meanwhile jasmine grown in Egypt and India (where the majority is produced today) does have a fruitier scent. Consistent higher temperatures shape their bouquet, with hints of red jam and a darker aroma that’s more amber-like than its French counterpart. It’s a similar sensation to shopping for paints: in the abstract, how different can an array of off-white shades be? Only when they’re smeared side-by-side on a kitchen wall can you clock the scale of the difference.
The Mul family had worked indirectly with Chanel for years, but in 1987 their business relationship evolved. “The CEO and nose both came to meet us. They asked if we were interested in a partnership. They needed these jasmine and rose essences to sustain and preserve the original quality of Chanel No 5.”
At first, a three-way partnership was established between the Muls, Chanel and a nearby factory where the flowers would be processed. “Eventually, the factory was taken over by a multinational. We decided to instead do this ourselves and build a factory of our own.” In more recent decades, operations here have expanded to include tuberose, geranium and iris. This arrangement has endured ever since, and while many of the major perfume players maintain a presence in Grasse – Louis Vuitton, Lancôme, Dior – only Chanel process their own flowers, rather than outsourcing, neatly “allowing Chanel to have full traceability from the field to the bottle.”
The fact that the Mul business is an intergenerational family affair is as valuable an ingredient to Chanel as the flowers grown here. Its brand and the lucrative, luxury industry in which it operates, trades on heritage, myth and legacy. Each year, a coterie of influencers descends on the farm to snap and pose and post shots of flowers in bloom, and a handful of journalists is invited to recount the charming – and certainly marketable – story of the Mul family.
Beneath all this, however, lies a practical, mutually beneficial business venture, and Monsieur Mul knows it. “When you have an agreement like this,” he says, with a shrewd smile, “everyone has to win. We are very direct and honest: here’s what we’ve grown, here’s what it costs to meet their requests and needs. In return, they ensure we can make a living.”
As Olivier Polge, Chanel’s current nose (and son of Mul’s original business partner, Jacques) tells me later: “If we didn’t invest, this farm wouldn’t exist today; without this farm, No 5 couldn’t exist either.”
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