Perfume is a bit like an invisible aura, something reassuring and protective that delineates one’s territory. But it’s successful when it signs a presence: it says you’ve been here or announces your arrival. With Musc Pallas, Vanina and I wanted to create a powerful perfume, with a distinctive trail, that would inhabit the space around its wearer. We wanted it to be in the image of an asteroid belt in perpetual revolution, forming an intense cocoon tinged with fruity, fresh, and carnal notes. We searched the heavens for a star that could embody that idea, and it’s Pallas — one of the largest asteroids in our solar system — that caught our eye. Orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, its remarkable mass makes it appear like a star, an apt metaphor for musks, which are among the largest molecules in perfumery.