If perfume has its own language then surely its mostly lyric trilogy is contained in the prose of Parfums Chanel; No. 5 expressing the seductive, No. 19, the outspoken and Coco, the sensual.

Jacques Polge is the third generation of 'Noses' within the company whose founder, the legendary Coco Chanel created a chic that would forever change the way in which women dressed their inner and outer selves. These three men, Ernest Beaux, Henri Robert and now Monsieur Polge, whose sensitivity to scent, ability to balance olfactive composition and reflect the air of changing modernity have enabled them to paint lingering pictures of feminine allure from their palettes of fragrance. Combining the technical and the aesthetic nuances of scent, Jacques Polge is well-versed in the art of the perfumer. He talks with Vive La Vie about what it is that the 'Nose' really knows...

VIVE: Firstly, M. Polge, how did you come to be involved in the art of perfumery?

POLGE: I did not come from Grasse like a lot of other perfumers, I actually came to be there by chance when I was about twelve years old and I lived there until I was nineteen or twenty. When you live in Grasse, you become very aware of the job of a perfumer and in fact that such a job exists. If I had been living in Paris I would probably have done something else - it was pure chance. After I had completed my Baccleaureat, I studied English and French Literature at the university in Aix-on-Provence: nothing at all related to the field of chemistry or perfumery. As I was completing my degree to become an English teacher at aged twenty, a perfume company in Grassee was seeking new people to learn the trade of the perfumer and they felt that it would be an advantage to have me because of my proficiency in English at the time. That was how I initially became involved in the industry. I remember that when I began the training, the first step was to smell constantly, to try to use your nose mechanically as a pianist would use his hands.