Written by Kristina Kybartaite-Damule

‘It was never my dream to create my own brand,’ says Dimitri Weber, the founder of Goldfield & Banks, with honesty. However, moving to Australia had a huge impact on both his personal and creative life, and this is how the widely beloved fragrances were born.

If you have ever tried anything from Goldfield & Banks, you know that they are unique and somehow exotic. This is because each of the fragrances is based on a specific ingredient of Australian origin. In this way, Dimitri Weber celebrates the beauty of the continent and spreads its scent worldwide.

I had the pleasure of meeting the founder of the brand a couple of times in Milan, and each time was delightful. He is very warm, fun, and creative – you can feel the positive energy radiating when talking to him.

This time, when one of us was melting from the Sicilian heat, and the other was cold from an Australian winter, we met virtually for an interview for PlezuroMag. We talked about the beginnings of Goldfield & Banks, the Australian touches in his fragrances, and the newest perfume, Mystic Bliss.

How did you get into fragrances, into perfumery, and what was your life before you started Goldfield & Banks?

The reality is that when I was a little child, I was already choosing and commenting on my mother's fragrances. And then, as I got older, my teachers at school would ask me for my advice. They would come to me with samples, and you know, in the 80s, there were little perfume samples. So we were swapping them. And for me, having a little sample when I was a child... It was in the early 80s, it was something very special, and perfumery was for the happy few ones, it was not always for everybody.

So that was my earliest memory of fragrances. Later I studied arts, then I wanted to go into fashion. And I quickly realized that fashion wasn't my thing, because I wanted to be in perfumes. So I was lucky enough. I started working in department stores spraying fragrances on weekends and school holidays at a very early age, and so I started my career. I had an amazing opportunity to work with YSL fragrances in the early 90s.

And then, how did you decide to create your own brand?

You know, it was never my dream to create my own brand. Because I always had a very privileged life, as I traveled around the world for all the brands that I was working for. I worked with Jean Paul Gaultier for many years, with Issey Miyake perfumes, with Narciso Rodriguez. I worked with Gucci, Tom Ford. I had so many clients because I did a lot of marketing education, training, and PR. So I was very fortunate and traveled around the world. So I thought to myself, why should I create a perfume brand? You know, in Paris there are so many brands.

But coming to Australia 11 years ago pushed me, in a way, to create my own fragrances. Because I don't like competition. I'm someone that likes to have a unique story. I don't want to have the same story as all the others. Australia was the opportunity to create a unique story about perfumery.

So that's why I did it then, and not before. Because why should I – to talk about roses and jasmine from Grasse like all the others? Not for me. French perfumery is becoming very boring and very dull. They all do the same. At least living in another country opens perspectives and it opens new worlds, territories, new ingredients.

That was my next question, about Australian inspirations. Do you have a favorite ingredient of Australian roots?

I personally love the Australian agarwood. It's not native, but it grows here. It's of very good quality. I love all the qualities of sandalwood we have in Australia. We have a lot of different qualities of sandalwood. I am particularly crazy about ingredients from Tasmania. Tasmanian ingredients are very popular and very unique. Like kunzea, the one that we use for Mystic Bliss. We have coastal tea tree. It's the starting point for every one of my fragrances. It's more like creating a perfume around one ingredient. And still creating a beautiful French perfumery, in a way. Does that make sense?

Could you tell us more about how the creative process looks like? Do you choose the ingredient and then the story comes?

Usually, how it works is I get sent a lot of ingredients from all over Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands. And when there is an ingredient that I'm interested in, I might smell it, discover it, and then I will send it to some perfumers in Paris or in Dubai. And then I see with some of the perfumers the potential of the ingredient, if it fits, if you can create a beautiful perfume around it. Because raw ingredients are not nice. It's always the blend, the creation, the formula that makes it unique. So that's how I usually work.

Or it can be a location. Sometimes, in Australia, I find a beautiful location, and then I think, what's around this location? Is there something interesting that I can use in this location? It's really celebrating the extraordinary beauty of Australia and its botanical richness. These are the two elements that I always keep in mind when I create my fragrances.

And let's go back a little bit to your story. Originally, you're from France, right?

Yes, and I have a French father and a Belgian mother.

And why did you move to Australia?

My partner is Australian. I met my partner during my first trip, and that's how I came to live here.

Was it difficult to move to another side of the world, another continent?

It's challenging. Of course, now this is home to me. I feel at home here, but it's often challenging. We know a lot of French people here. They moved when they were 20–25, maybe 30, it's fine, but I was getting closer to 40 when I moved, and I could not move again, like it's too much for me now. It was not easy because it's a different culture. It's a very challenging move, but I did it. It enriches my life. I love my life here.

Then let's go to your new perfume…

Oh, it's absolutely beautiful. I'm obsessed with it. It's very powdery. It's like, I would say, a powdery chypre. Woody, powdery perfume. It's a very, very complex fragrance. It's very different from what we currently have in the collection, but you can still smell the Australian sillage.

Could you tell us more about the main ingredient from Australia in this fragrance?

It's kunzea. It's a shrub, like a bush, and it blossoms in September. But we don't use the flower at all. The flower is cute, but we don't use the flower, it doesn't smell. But the leaves, it's got tiny little leaves, they are the ones that smell. It looks like grass. It smells a bit grassy too, very green. It has a very uplifting, therapeutic, comforting scent, and it's quite minty as well. So I find it quite interesting.

The essential oil comes from an island called Flinders Island, and I was there about six weeks ago. It's a remote island with only 500 inhabitants, next to Tasmania. And I spent two days there with the farmer. It's very, very interesting, the way they extract the oil, it's absolutely beautiful.

When I smelled the fragrance for the first time, I remembered that I had in my office a sample of a perfume that Florian Gallo from Firmenich made four years ago. And it reminded me of that fragrance, and I found it in my fragrance library. I thought that fragrance had something close to the original note of kunzea. So I contacted Firmenich, I contacted Florian, and I was in Paris then last year, I met up with him, and I said, can we start from that fragrance and integrate kunzea and start building on that original note?

That's how we started working. We worked a long, long time, because I like to refine perfumes, like push the boundaries of the perfumers. And I think at the end, he was a little bit over it. But I really wanted the perfume to be perfect. Nothing is perfect in life. But this fragrance is so beautiful.

It's quite unique, very gender-neutral. And you cannot really tell whether it is a cold or hot weather fragrance. But it's a very cocooning perfume, so it's probably more suited for Europe in the next few weeks, when it becomes more autumn. In September, October.

In Tasmania, in the south of Australia, we have Aurora Australis. And so from May to September, we have skies that are purple, and green. That partly inspired me to create the bottle with the sparkles.

Watching your Instagram stories, it seems like you travel a lot. Do travels inspire your perfumes?

Traveling is very tiring at the end, but what inspires me with traveling is seeing different things, meeting different people, different audiences, different architecture. All this influences and inspires me. Different nature, different foods, different presentations of objects, different cultures, different rituals. Every trip is an enrichment. I come back, and I have more knowledge in that little brain here (laughs).

Do you have a favorite perfume from your collection? And do you have a special perfume not necessarily from your line?

In my collection, my all-time favorite is Purple Suede, such a beautiful fragrance. And other than from my brand, I have always loved Serge Lutens. Feminite Du Bois is one of my all-time favorite perfumes. The original Shalimar from Guerlain, the original Coco Extrait de Parfum from Chanel, but it probably does not exist anymore. The original formula with the tonka bean and all that. Serge Lutens has always had a special place in my heart. Also, classics like Eau Sauvage. Original Opium for men – beautiful, the old formula was amazing. I'm quite a classic person.

Your brand, Goldfield & Banks, found its way to people's hearts very quickly; it became quite popular in Europe. Could you tell us what's your key to success?

I think the fact that we are an Australian brand using Australian ingredients was already very different. It's a story that doesn't fit within the French perfumery. So it was like, oh, what's that brand? And I think a lot of luck is involved. You need to be very lucky because you need to have good perfumes. We are very fortunate; today we have Sunset Hour, Silky Woods, Pacific Rock Moss. These are perfumes that the audience loves wearing.

I think also the key to success, I mean, for the initial launch of the brand, I have to admit that we owe a lot to Demi Rawling. She's part of the story of the brand.

Also, I think creating beautiful imagery is important. I'm not the kind of person that will tell you I was inspired by blah blah blah... No, I make perfumes based on ingredients.

What do you enjoy the most about working in the fragrance industry?

The creativity. Absolutely. I love creating. I love compiling things, propping things, designing with my designer, the packaging, the bottle.

Tell us about your future plans. What are you working on right now?

Next year, we are launching a very, very beautiful fragrance. We are creating something next to Pacific Rock Moss, something new. A big launch. And then we're creating a new fragrance in the botanical series, based on Ambergris from New Zealand. Quite animalic, deep.

Thank you for your time.