Thierry Mugler's Egyptian fragrance launch

You might wonder what being in the Libyan desert has to do with a fragrance launch. There aren't any handsome waiters offering flutes of champagne. Instead there are miles of honey-coloured sand and, if you look carefully, scarabs and snake prints glinting under the sun. But there's a divine madness behind inviting magazine journalists to the ancient city of Siwa, perched on the border of Egypt and Libya. After 13 years, Thierry Mugler has created his second fragrance for women, Alien. And we have been invited into Mugler's esoteric universe.

"When I first met Thierry in Paris, he visited the Bois de Boulogn every day to touch a tree," says Vera Strubi, president of Thierry Mugler Parfums Worldwide and head of Stella Cadente Parfums. "he felt that it gave him energy because the tree is a symbol of life. His apartment is only sparsely furnished because he is not inspired by things around him, but by emptiness. That is why his favourite colour is light blue, because it's the colour of the sky."

Mugler, as it turns out, is also fascinated by deserts. He has visited all of them and is currently producing a book of photographs of creatures living in the Nevada desert. Five years ago, when Strubi and Mugler created the concept for Alien, Mugler envisioned the Alient woman as from Earth but with healing powers derived from ancient traditions. "We knew it would start with an A like Angel, and we wanted it to be five letters for luck," says Strubi.

Like the desert itself, Alien feels both familiar and foreign, and this paradox is intentional. When Strubi sought a perfumer, the guidelines she gave were so contradictory, no one knew how to proceed. "We told the perfumers that we wanted something mysterious and rather dark -- but at the same time very joyful and full of solar energy," says Strubi, shaking her blond hair and chuckling. In the end, Strubi and Pierre Aulas, Mugler Parfums fragrance consultant, worked exclusively with the seasoned Dominique Ropion and the younger, "slightly mad" Lauren Bruyère, who brought an element of fantasy to the formula. Together they created an addictive exotic wood and amber with a bright, slightly "beachy" jasmine top note.

Photo courtesy of Norbert Mayer