Harper's BAZAAR Australia, September 2012
It’s not often a top fashion buyer leaves their enviable post to make candles, but Elise Pioch has done just that. The former buyer for Belinda and The Corner Shop boutiques has just launched Maison Balzac, a luxe range of scented burnables inspired by her homeland, the south of France, and named after the French novelist Honoré de Balzac, who she claims is a distant ancestor (her mother’s maiden name is Balzac).
“Candles are a very French thing to have, but they’re also an inexpensive pleasure,” she says. “When I was a child, my mother always had one burning. That little flicker makes everything warm and beautiful.” Her childhood and deep love of nature is evident throughout the collection: the lavender fields of Provence, her grandmother’s garden and the smell of the bush near her country home — a converted church an hour out of Sydney. “I need to be around nature,” she says. “I didn’t feel at home here until I understood the land, which is why I had to have earthy, all-natural fragrances.”
It is Pioch’s passions for her home and heritage that make the collection so intriguing; each scent is a personal story, laid and set in soy wax. “I wanted to transport people to where I grew up, so if you haven’t been to France, these scents could take you there,” she says.
Her aim to “condense life moments into something that someone can smell, hold and understand” has made the process like creating intimate works of art — she’s not just making candles, but telling her story. The result is not only a collection true to her roots, but also one that gels with Pioch’s fashion pedigree and pays homage to her former mentors. “As a buyer you learn what your customers want, and push them beyond,” she says. “Never bend on quality or do things halfway.” (She credits a stint at Hermès in Paris for the latter.) “I still love fashion,” she exclaims. “Look at the colours
on the label. That’s my … Lacroix touch.”
And Pioch is clearly not done yet. As I go to leave, she hints at what’s in store for the future: “You know, it’s also a very French thing to match the scent you wear to your home.” Watch this space.
SCENTS & SENSIBILITY
Le Sud:“Provence’s rows of lavender are so beautiful. Le Sud captures the smell.”
Le Soleil:“Thyme, lemon, rosemary and basil — what could be more south-of-France than that?”
L’Eglise:“This is inspired by my church home; it smells of frankincense, myrrh and labdanum and is warm and inviting.”
Le Bois:“The wood [le bois] cedar and all the little shrubs that grow in the Mediterranean.”
La Rose:“My grandmother’s garden had tea rose, violet and geranium. La Rose evokes this memory.”
Maison Balzac candles, $45, maisonbalzac.com
Portrait by Bec Parsons. Styled by Christine Centenera. Hair and makeup by Jodi Gardner at Network Agency & Management.