40 Years, One Candle: Our Story with Lola James Harper

To celebrate NellyRodi’s 40th anniversary, we wanted to give ourselves a gift that would last for at least the next 40 years. We reached out to Lola James Harper to create the Hôtel Cromot du Bourg candle – named after the building that houses NellyRodi’s Paris offices. We spoke with Rami Mekdachi, co-founder and creative director of Lola James Harper.

I was born in Beirut in the 1970s — a city that gave me, from the very beginning, a love for travel, vibrant colors, and the romanticism that lives within fragrances. I grew up in Paris, a city that shaped my artistic sensitivity, and later lived in both the United States and England — two countries that broadened my perspective, enriched my creative path, and influenced my entrepreneurial vision.

Since the 1980s, music has been at the core of everything, along with the culture that comes with it: I played guitar in rock and punk bands, skated through the streets of Paris, and spent my time taking photographs and filming — concerts, street life, fleeting moments — everything that was alive and pulsing around me. That’s how I connected to both image and sound.

Then, in the 1990s, I had the chance to meet two extraordinary perfumers — Pierre Bourdon and Benoît Lapouza — who introduced me to the world of fragrance. It was a revelation. I realized how deeply scent, like music, is invisible, intangible — yet capable of completely transforming an atmosphere. Sound and scent bypass the intellect. They go straight to memory, to emotion. They are abstract languages, yet profoundly powerful.

Around that time, a friend introduced me to two iconic places in Paris: Colette and Hôtel Costes. That’s when I began exploring a new path — creating fragrances for iconic places.

It was the beginning of a new chapter. Over time, I collaborated with houses such as Chloé, Roger Vivier, Lacoste, and Inès de la Fressange — always blending music, scent, film, and photography. And I did it with my family — traveling with my wife, daughter, and son — recording songs, shooting films and photographs, and capturing the essence of places and encounters through fragrance.

In 2010, I came to understand that all these mediums — music, photography, film, and scent — were part of the same language, part of one singular artistic vision. That’s how Lola James Harper was born: a global art project created to share how we see and feel the world. We officially launched it in 2013 at Colette in Paris.

Since then, Lola James Harper has become a world of its own — a space where we bring together scents of beloved places, songs recorded on the road, photographs from our travels, and the films we create. Through pop-ups, exhibitions, and happenings around the world, we invite the public to step into our sensory universe. At Merci, Kith or Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche in Paris, at Maxfield in Los Angeles, LNCC in london, Boontheshop, Kith, Liquide or OFR in Séoul, Isetan or Hankyu in Tokyo and other prestigious venues around the world.

We’ve also been incredibly fortunate to cross paths with remarkable places and iconic artists who’ve entrusted us with their stories. Like the legendary band The Smashing Pumpkins, for whom we created the fragrance of their recording studio, as well as a film and a collection of photographs. Or Joshua Hong, the K-pop star, with whom we co-created perfumes and photographs.

We’ve also had the honor of working with emblematic institutions such as the Palais Galliera, for whom we created the museum’s official fragrance, and Inès de la Fressange, for whom we composed the scent of her house in Provence. And of course Colette, who gave us the immense honor of including in our collection the legendary fig scent that perfumed their iconic concept store for 20 years.

Most recently, we collaborated with NellyRodi — and in particular with Nelly Rodi herself and Pierre-François Lelouët, dear longtime friends — to create the fragrance of their beautiful Hôtel Cromot Du Bourg, accompanied by a short film celebrating the 40th anniversary of the NellyRodi agency.

Because a brand is not just a collection of products — it’s a world of its own, a complete cultural universe. When you enter a brand’s universe, you’re stepping into a carefully constructed dream: a unique visual language, colors, sounds, a rhythm… and of course, a signature scent.

It’s just like discovering a new country or culture. Every culture has its own codes — a way of dressing, cooking, welcoming, speaking… and specific scents that evoke places and memories. Fragrance, like music or language, expresses the soul of a culture.

Today, a brand that truly wants to connect, inspire, and build loyalty must express itself on every sensory level. It must create an immersive universe where guests — its clients — are invited to travel, be inspired , recharge… and leave with a piece of that world, in the form of a product.

Fragrance is now an essential language for expressing brand identity. It’s an invisible but powerful way to tell a story, trigger emotion, and leave a lasting impression. A well-designed scent is a key that opens the door to an entire world.

There’s a fundamental difference between a personal fragrance like an eau de toilette and an ambient scent like a candle or room spray.

Ambient fragrance is the scent of a place. When you light a candle, you’re not just adding fragrance — you’re transforming a space. You’re inviting another world into your home, your shop, your hotel. Lighting a candle is like opening a portal: suddenly, you bring in the scent of Colette, the Hotel Costes, a vinyl shop on Rue des Dames in Paris, a bookstore café in New York, or a riverside walk along the Han River in Seoul.

When we create ambient scents, we work around the idea of a specific place — with simple, direct accords designed to immediately evoke a clear atmosphere. The goal is teleportation. It’s an immobile journey, a sensory escape through fragrance.

Eau de toilette is something else entirely. It’s like clothing — you wear it on your body. It’s not about transforming the room around you, but shifting something within you. Just like the clothes or shoes you choose influence your posture, your attitude, your presence, the scent you wear changes your energy.

When we design a personal fragrance, we’re no longer working with the concept of place — we’re working with the concept of mindset. An eau de toilette tells a poetic, intimate story. It unfolds in layers — top, heart, and base notes — like a journey through thought and feeling, like a poem.

So while an ambient fragrance is a place and a moment — instant, figurative, and evocative — a personal fragrance is a state of mind. It’s more philosophical, more emotional, and designed to accompany you through the different moods of your day.

I had the chance to meet Nelly Rodi and Pierre-François Le louët 20 years ago, when we first came together to talk about fragrance. Since then, we’ve become friends. Over the years, we’ve often met to share ideas, inspirations, and simply talk about life — what moves us, what we find meaningful.

This year, 2025, is a very special one: it marks the 40th anniversary of the NellyRodi agency. So together — Nelly, Pierre-François, and myself — we wanted to celebrate this milestone in a personal and poetic way. We decided to create a short film, a visual tribute to the agency’s journey, its vision, and the beauty of this family-led project that has evolved through four decades with creativity and purpose.

We also wanted to celebrate the incredible space that now houses the agency — the Hôtel Cromot du Bourg — a majestic and historical place. Since 1830, it has been home to artists, artisans, and entrepreneurs. It once echoed with the music of Chopin and the pianos of Pleyel. It has known vibrant eras, and quieter ones too, and now it lives again, full of creative energy.

What makes NellyRodi special is that it brings together creatives, craftsmen, thinkers, and makers — to imagine the future. And so, for the 40th anniversary, we wanted to honor both the project and the place. That’s why we created the scent of this hôtel particulier.

As I’ve said before, the scent of a space isn’t an abstract concept — it’s figurative, it’s real. When you step into Hôtel Cromot du Bourg, your eyes take in the woodwork, the moldings, the paintings… When I create a room fragrance, I work more like a photographer. I observe — I ask myself, what does this place truly smell like? And then I try to translate that visually evocative impression into scent, using the right raw materials. And here, it became clear: a precious wood, deep and majestic.