Our Purpose Agent de l’Orangerie is a satirical fragrance brand, influenced by culture jamming and subvertising techniques. It calls us to question the products we consume which are advertised to us via fantasy, exoticism, and exploitation. It specifically calls attention to French colonialism and the Vietnam War, but the contents continue to be relevant today.
Our Name Agent de l’Orangerie’s name was inspired by Agent Orange, an herbicide used during the Vietnam War to destroy the Vietcong’s hiding spots, as well as destroy their food supply. It had devastating consequences for the Vietnamese population. Over three million people in Vietnam alone experienced health consequences as a result of exposure (not to mention neighboring countries and American war veterans).
The Orangerie “Orangerie” is French for “orangery,” a greenhouse or conservatory used to house or protect orange trees. Its usage in the context of Agent Orange reflects the irony of using a word that means conservation while in reality, Agent Orange harmed or killed many Vietnamese people and the surrounding environment.
The Founder There were not many records about the smell of Agent Orange, but its usage is vaguely reminiscent of spraying perfume. In fact, I arrived at the conclusion to focus on Agent Orange when I researched the brand Diptyque, a French luxury brand started by three co-founders–one of whom grew up in Vietnam during his childhood. Yves Coueslant’s father was the head of the legal department of the Bank of Indochina in Vietnam, a bank which was created to finance French colonialism in Indochina.
Today, one of Diptyque’s most popular fragrances is the Vietnam-inspired “Do Son.” The fragrance was not created during the founders’ lifetime, but it leans into the idea of “heritage” and, I would argue, a certain level of exoticism. Those in positions of power often want to claim or align themselves with “exotic” cultures, and they might even do so without having traveled there by smelling like and forming fantasies of these faraway lands.
Diptyque’s website claims that its ingredients are responsibly-sourced, but you can never be too sure. Unfortunately, the production of perfume is potentially hazardous to its workers. And, the harvesting of these ingredients often leads to deforestation or other environmental issues.
The irony of a wealthy country extracting a valuable resource from a developing one, repackaging it, and then selling it back to the developing country as a luxury cannot be overstated.
