Cate Blanchett

The two-times Oscar winner talks celebrating flaws, learning to say no and why beauty is a feminist issue

- Fiona Embleton

Fragrance was my pathway from girlhood to womanhood. I couldn’t tell you exactly what scent my mother or grandmother wore, but I saw it as some sort of conduit. It’s what you aspire to be. Perfume is also [part of] your morning ritual, so when Mr Armani approached me and said he wanted to call his signature fragrance Si [‘yes’ in Italian], I thought what an extraordinary, positive way for a woman to enter the day. A scent describes the spirit of a woman, not her physical attributes. What I love about all the Giorgio Armani Si fragrances is that they have a really sensual chypre as a base note, which I always gravitate towards. Even though Si Fiori [£74 for 50ml EDP] has mandarin and neroli, and it’s very energetic and wicked, it still has that base gravitas. The perfumes have a sense of duality. They are about the complexity of being a woman, not just the so-called feminine or masculine end, but smashing all of those elements together.

I love the way perfume transports you back in time and to a place. It’s usually something to do with the natural world – a forest, walking in long grass or in the wind – that stems back to my childhood. I was a latchkey kid and a real tomboy. My weekends would involve having a tennis lesson on Sunday morning, then I’d be offdown by the river on my bike.

Today, women are no longer seeing themselves as rivals or competitors, we’re collaborators.