United by creativity, Marie-Lise Jonak and her son Baptiste Bouygues merge expertise and imagination—her deep knowledge of perfumery with his flair for luxury storytelling—to bring Ormaie to life
A mother-son collaboration isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t common either; Ormaie is one of the very few brands. Born from the synergy between Marie-Lise Jonak, a fragrance veteran who spent decades mastering the art of scent creation for global houses, and her son, Baptiste Bouygues, a design connoisseur who cut his teeth at luxury powerhouses like Louis Vuitton, the Parisian maison is far more than the sum of its parts. It is a calculated rebellion against the industrial scale of modern perfumery, favouring poetic sincerity and a relentless dedication to craft.
For the duo, every element—from the choice of traceable, natural ingredients to the sculptural bottle topped with a hand-carved wooden cap—is anchored in a shared creative language forged through a lifetime of experience. It is this unusual, intimate partnership that allows them to do something truly different: bottling emotional memory itself.
At the core of Ormaie lies the concept of a common olfactory memory. For most partnerships, this would be an abstract ideal, but for the Jonak-Bouygues duo, it’s a tangible, creative tool. From childhood, Bouygues grew up in his mother’s professional orbit, absorbing the world of scent. This shared history provides an immediate, visceral understanding that bypasses corporate briefs and market trends.
Jonak offers an example: patchouli. “When I lived in Thailand, I used to place small sachets of it in my closets to perfume the clothes and linen,” she recalls. “It was comforting, rich, a little mysterious. Bouygues grew up with that smell in the background. He would mention it often, even years later. His fascination with that note became a kind of red thread in our creations.” It is this shared reference point that allows them to co-create in an unusually aligned way, drawing on real moments rather than just aesthetics.
When Bouygues approaches his mother with an idea—a feeling, a song, a half-formed recollection—Jonak possesses the technical mastery to translate that vague vision into structure and precision. As Bouygues notes, “She takes that vague music, that half-formed memory, and translates it, with precision, structure, and decades of know-how, into scent. She gives form to the emotion.”
Defining luxury through authenticity in craft
Jonak, with her background in the established world of fine fragrance, and Bouygues, with his experience in modern luxury communications, found their reconciliation point in rigour and narrative.
“In my experience, the most memorable fragrances were always those that told a story,” Jonak states. Bouygues’ contribution is pursuing that narrative with extraordinary rigour and attention to detail that is “almost architectural.” It’s this demanding combination of emotion and exactitude that defines Ormaie’s luxury today.
The commitment extends to the brand’s most distinguishing feature: a dedication to 100% natural (or mostly natural) compositions. For an industry often reliant on cost-effective synthetics, this is a statement. The brand’s name, Ormaie (French for “elm grove”), speaks directly to this vision. “Nature is a recurring theme in our work,” Jonak explains, “so incorporating exceptional raw ingredients was an obvious extension of that vision. We’re drawn to their richness and their poetry.”
The bottle as Object d’Art
The design ethos of Ormaie ensures the vessel is as thoughtfully executed as the scent inside. Bouygues, responsible for the brand’s unique visual identity, saw an opportunity to make the fragrance bottle a collectible object.
His inspiration subtly comes from his own family legacy. While he never intentionally referenced his grandfather’s sculpting work, the influence is clear in the choice of materials. “Choosing wood for our caps came from that same instinct to use something that echoes the natural ingredients inside our perfumes,” he says. The result is a sculptural bottle topped with a distinctive, hand-carved wooden cap, featuring graphic typography influenced by modernist art.
“As a child, I was drawn to my mother’s perfume bottles, not for their scent, but for their beauty,” Bouygues reflects. His goal was simple: “A bottle that feels crafted, not manufactured.”
The legacy of restraint
In looking toward the future, the duo’s dynamic continues to shape their vision. Bouygues describes the partnership as one where he brings emotion—the desire to tell stories through scent—while from his mother, he has learned “the beauty of restraint.”
Jonak sees their shared work ethic as their true defining trait: “The idea that you don’t stop until the work reflects the truth of what you meant to say. It’s not about perfection for its own sake, but about honesty in creation.”
Bouygues hopes that twenty years from now, Ormaie will still be a house where every detail matters, existing “slightly outside of time: a little poetic, a little radical in our refusal to rush.” The brand, in its intentional delicacy and sincerity, stands as a quiet counterpoint to the luxury giants, proving that the most profound and lasting luxury is achieved when creation is driven by the truth of a shared, intimate story.
