Creating a scent and crafting furniture might not seem like practices that necessarily align. Marc-Antoine Barrois would disagree. The perfumer and couturier is unveiling a line of furniture, alongside a new perfume, in an installation at Milan Design Week. The installation, Mission Aldebaran, is named for the perfume, Aldebaran, which is a single flower fragrance focused on tuberose. The installation is located at Salone dei Tessuti, a 1930s Milanese landmark, now transformed into a “dark forest.” Barrois developed the installation with designer and artist Antoine Bouillot. The pair are also releasing a line of furniture—comprised of stools and benches—that are exhibited within the installation. KefferThe clearing at the end of the installation, with handmade paper tuberose flowers. Before their big Milan debut, Elle Decor sat down with Barrois and Bouillot to discuss the making of the installation and what they hope visitors take away from the project, long after Design Week ends. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Elle Decor: First of all, tell me how this project came to be.Marc-Antoine Barrois: It all started when Quentin Bisch, a perfumer, made me smell tuberose. It brought to mind images: It’s a bright star in the night, a full moon, it’s the Patronus in Harry Potter that protects him, this huge light going out of his wand.I talked with Antoine and told him about an idea to create a space where people would be inside a dark forest and they would move toward the light. That was the starting point. Antoine Bouillot: My concern was how to make people feel, physically feel, what we had in mind. And so that's why we created this image of a forest with thousands of black ropes. We have about 87 miles of black ropes. There’s no direction, people are free to go wherever they want. And the idea is there is a tiny light in the distance, which, for us, really represents hope. By following this light, people will end up in a clearing where we have a paper tuberose field. KefferThe black ropes in the installation. Tell me a bit about the furniture—two benches (which each weigh 1,000 kilos) and three one-seater stools. How did that come into play with this whole experience?AB: In the installation, you go from something dark and kind of stressful to a meditative space where you can really gather your thoughts and be a bit more relaxed. So we needed people to be able to sit down and embrace the space.We decided to find little pebbles on the beach—a beach where Marc-Antoine lives—and we selected those very tiny pebbles like a child chooses pebbles. We had them scanned in super high definition and had them re-cut in rare marble to the size of a stool or bench. It’s the exact replica of our tiny pebbles we found on the beach. And, if you let children sit on stones in a forest, they are not going to pick the easiest stone to access or the most comfortable one. They’re going to pick the one that’s the most beautiful.KefferThe full seating collection. Marc-Antoine, what are the similarities one might not expect between designing furniture and a perfume? MB: A perfume tells a story. And I do believe that a furniture collection tells a story on its own. Even if someone gets one single seater in their living room, it’s not one single seater they're buying. It's the story of those pebbles.To me, the most beautiful place in the world is nature. We can try our best but nature still makes things much better than humans do it. That's my vision—being able to bring into people’s lives a little piece of nature. KefferThe original pebbles Barrois and Bouillot based the collection on. If you had to think about an ideal place for these pieces of furniture, what would it look like to you?AB: I like the idea of contrast, so for me it would be very interesting to see it in a Venetian Palazzo. I like this grand element, or something radical, like a Tadao Ando house, or something like all in concrete, something extremely pure. When visitors come to the installation, what do you hope they take away from it? AB: I really hope they're going to have an emotion. I know some people might just walk through and not be in touch with it, but I think some other people are going to have a much deeper connection. And that would make us happy.KefferTwo of the collection’s stools. What kind of emotion do you want them to feel?AB: For me, the clearing is going to be very relaxing and you’re going to gather your thoughts. I think it’s going to be a really personal journey which will be different for everybody. MB: It's oppressive and you don't feel comfortable in the ropes, but then we’re giving people the opportunity to express how we feel in our lives, how we feel with the news, with everything and, still, there's a light over there, and if you follow the light, you come to a place, as Antoine says, which is really relaxing and really comforting.I hope they leave with an emotion and that every time they smell the perfume, it will remind them of this emotion, saying that was an amazing moment.Mission Aldebaran will be located at Salone dei Tessuti in Milan from April 8th to 13th.Annie GoldsmithNews WriterAnnie Goldsmith is the news writer for Town & Country, where she covers culture, politics, style, and the British royal family.