The Interview: Master perfumer Daniela Andrier on creating scents without cliché for Miu Miu

Daniela Andrier is multi-award-winning master perfumer, who is the nose behind many of the most iconic fragrances on the global market.

She has had a long-standing relationship with Prada Group for whom she has created dozens of fragrances. The Italian group has also entrusted Andrier with establishing the fragrance identity for its Miu Miu brand, which is famed in fashion for its agenda-setting, off-beat designs.

In common with Miu Miu's fashion designs, Andrier also likes to challenge with her fragrances, by offering complex and unexpected combinations that never descend into cliché.

Andrier talks to us about her career, her approach to creating fragrance and the story behind Miu Miu's latest launch, a solar fragrance called Fleur de Lait (milk flower).

Before we get to Miu Miu, can you please tell us how you came to be a perfumer?

When I was a child, I was already mixing my mother’s fragrances. I was completely obsessed with scent — it was how I perceived the world, people, nature, even the seasons.

At the time, I thought everyone experienced the world that way. It’s only later that you realise perception is something deeply personal.

I also assumed that fragrances were created by designers themselves – I didn’t know perfumers existed. Back then, it was a very secretive profession, often passed down through generations in the South of France. There was very little visibility – no media, no articles. It felt like a hidden world.

Then one day, at a dinner in Paris, a girl mentioned that her dream had been to become a perfumer, but she couldn’t because she suffered from chronic sinusitis. And in that moment, I realised: this is a profession. It was an instant revelation. I knew immediately that this was what I wanted to do.

Ironically, I also had chronic sinusitis – but I decided not to let that stop me. From that moment on, everything aligned. I met Jacques Polge at Chanel and did an internship there, then continued at Robertet and later at Roure (now part of Givaudan), where I still work today. I also trained in Grasse, at one of the most prestigious perfumery schools.

What was your first official role in perfumery, and what inspired you most about it?

After my studies in Grasse, I started as an assistant perfumer to Edouard Fléchier. I worked on smaller projects at first, but at that stage, everything felt incredibly important. When you’re young, you approach every brief as if it were a major, strategic project.

There’s a kind of naïveté in that — but also something very beautiful. You believe deeply in what you’re doing, and everything feels exciting and meaningful.

Fashion designers have a distinct handwriting, make-up artists have a particular look, do you have a particular signature as a perfumer?

It’s always difficult to analyse your own style. But from what people tell me, there is a certain signature – something very delicate and subtle. It’s not something that hits you immediately or aggressively.

It’s more about nuance. Something refined, almost understated, that reveals itself gradually.

You first worked with Miu Miu in 2015 and created its first house fragrance, how did you go about encapsulating the essence of the house in a fragrance?

Having worked with Miu Miu and Prada for many years, I feel very connected to the brand’s universe. In many ways, observing their collections has shaped me as a perfumer. It has educated my eye – and, by extension, my nose.

I see myself as a translator. I work with an olfactory “alphabet,” and my role is to translate a world, a vision, into scent. As long as I truly understand the spirit of the brand, I can reinterpret it again and again. Each creation becomes a new translation of that same identity.

Tell us about your latest creation Fleur de Lait. What inspired it and what did you set out to achieve with it?

The idea was to create something edible, but without falling into cliché. I didn’t want a synthetic, overly fruity, “shampoo-like” fragrance. Instead, I wanted something mouth-watering yet impossible to define.

The composition blends musks with coconut milk to create a sensual, enveloping texture. Mango acts like a ray of sunshine cutting through that milky softness, while osmanthus brings a beautiful apricot-like floral nuance.

What I love about it is that it feels familiar, yet elusive. You recognize something, but you can’t quite name it. It’s playful, charming, and deeply sensual.

It is a fruity ‘solar' fragrance, which is popular trend right now particularly for the season. Are you affected by trends in fragrance or do you just create what feels right for the house?

Not really. For me, there are almost too many fragrances today for there to be a single, clear trend.

If anything, the real “trend” is that people are looking for emotion – for something that reconnects them to themselves, beyond screens and digital life. Fragrance becomes a way to feel present, to access pleasure in a more tangible way.

Personally, I work very intuitively. I follow instinct, not trends.

You say you want fragrances to avoid clichés, can you explain what you mean by that

A cliché, for me, is something obvious – something that lacks creativity, subtlety, or imagination. For example, many gourmand fragrances reduce femininity to something overly sweet, like burnt sugar – something almost edible in a literal, simplistic way. That, to me, is a cliché.

What I seek instead is complexity, nuance, and a certain intellectual dimension. Something that invites interpretation rather than giving everything away immediately.

Miu Miu is such an interesting fashion house that always surprises and challenges (I always have to stop and think about what it does, but invariably end up loving it!) but still creates such desirable items. Do you think the same applied to the fragrances?

It’s a complex question.

Fashion operates at a very fast rhythm – each show presents dozens of new looks, constantly renewing the brand’s expression. Fragrance works differently. You can’t launch fifty perfumes in a season.

But I do believe that, with Fleur de Lait, there is a similar sense of surprise. It plays with familiar elements – milk, fruit, softness – yet transforms them into something unexpected. It captures that Miu Miu tension: playful yet sophisticated, familiar yet new.

And today, people also approach fragrance differently. They don’t wear just one scent anymore – they use fragrance as a way to express different facets of themselves, just like fashion. In that sense, there is a strong parallel between the two.

Miu Miu Fleur de Lait is available to buy now from £72 for 30ml.