Guerlain

About the house

Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain founded the house in Paris. The house's own account puts his first boutique at 42 rue de Rivoli and calls him a perfumer, chemist and inventor. In 1853 he created Eau de Cologne Impériale as a wedding present for Empress Eugénie, which brought him the title of supplier to Napoleon III. The bottle carried golden bees.

His son Aimé Guerlain (1834-1910) created Jicky in 1889. It is widely described as the oldest continuously produced perfume in the world, though that claim has not been independently checked. The name has two origin stories: the pet name of Aimé's girlfriend from his student years in England, or the nickname of his nephew Jacques. Bois de Jasmin says Jicky combined natural and synthetic materials, with coumarin and vanillin used together.

Jacques Guerlain is credited with Après l'Ondée (1906), L'Heure Bleue (1912), Mitsouko (1919), Shalimar (1925) and Vol de Nuit (1933). He had a reputation as a slow, perfectionist worker who developed several fragrances at once, and one critic called him a pastry chef for his rich palette. The flagship at 68 Avenue des Champs-Élysées opened in 1913, headquarters moved there in 1914, and it is still the main Paris address.

The Guerlain family ran the company until 1994, when it was sold to LVMH. One company history says Christian Dior took 58.9% that year and LVMH completed the takeover in 1996. The same history describes the 1996 fragrance Champs-Élysées, developed by Christian Lanis, as a marketing concept first and foremost. In 2010 LVMH cut ties with Jean-Paul Guerlain as consultant after racist remarks on French television.

Thierry Wasser, a Swiss perfumer trained at Givaudan and Firmenich, became the in-house perfumer in 2008, the first from outside the family. His work for the house includes Idylle (2009), La Petite Robe Noire (2012) and Mon Guerlain (2017, with Delphine Jelk).