Excited by the idea of an entrepreneurial lifestyle, Molloy and his wife set up the luxury fragrance brand Memo Paris in 2007 that aimed to “capture the emotions of places we visited while travelling,” he explains. “We didn’t have a clue if it would work but it’s now the best selling cosmetic brand in Harvey Nichols in London.”
In 2016 they established Floraiku, a fragrance company themed on Japanese haiku poems that was acquired by Harrod’s. Their most recent project is Hermetica, which Molloy describes as “the first ever collection of non alcoholic, long-lasting, strong, clean, green fragrances. It’s not perfume, not skincare, but something in between. Our perfumer Aliénor Massenet had to unlearn and reformulate everything from the last 20 years of her career – it’s alchemy.”
Hermetica’s other perfumer, Philippe Paparella admits, “Sometimes fragrance can be boring but this project was completely new and experimental and refreshed my creativity. It forced me to look at materials in a different way.”
