Guerlain is the only surviving firm from the Golden Age of perfumery, the explosion of creativity that followed the rise of fragrance chemistry in the 1880s. Coumarin, vanillin, aldehydes, quinolines, lactones, ionones, irones, Schiff bases, etc. completely revolutionized perfume composition. Coty, Guerlain and many others took advantage of the new palette to create modern perfumery. Sadly, most of these companies have fallen by the wayside. The greatest loss is Coty, whose pathbreaking perfumes inspired many of Guerlain’s creations. They are still trading but reduced to dregs. Many of the Guerlains, and arguably all the best ones, have been continuously available from the date of their release. The oldest is Jicky (1889, same year as the Eiffel Tower). Guerlain’s perfumes should, I think, be declared Unesco World Heritage. If I may add to this suggestion, please also restore them to the original compositions and put a skull-and-crossbones on the bottle to appease the regulators.
Twenty years ago, a reliable source within Guerlain tipped me off to their intent to reformulate Mitsouko (1919) to bring it in line with new regulations about raw materials. This was alarming enough, but the really bad news was how they were going to do it. They were looking for a junior technical perfumer with a couple of years of experience after graduation to reformulate an immortal masterpiece. At the time, I had a monthly column in a Swiss magazine. I wrote, warning that this was about to happen. Some people at Guerlain got cheesed off and threatened a lawsuit, to which my editor replied that if Guerlain could show that any of the facts stated were incorrect, the column would be withdrawn. End.
Guerlain was sold to LVMH in 1994 and went through 14 years of turbulence until Thierry Wasser was hired as in-house perfumer in 2008. The in-house perfumer at the time of the sale was Jean-Paul Guerlain, and he remained nominally in charge until 2002. In the interim, pre-Wasser years, Guerlain fragrances were composed by Olivier Cresp (Champs-Elysées), Mathilde Laurent (Pamplelune, Shalimar Light), Béatrice Piquet (L’Instant Homme) and Maurice Roucel (L’Instant, Insolence). There must have been an outcry in the perfumery world when it emerged that Mitsouko was going to be handed to a rookie, and Edouard Fléchier, a master perfumer both technical and creative, was eventually hired for the job.
At the time of his hiring, Wasser was a young Firmenich perfumer with a decent number of fragrances under his belt, none earth-shaking. (Bruno Banani Scent from Hell, anyone?) There was widespread alarm when he got the job, which apparently Roucel was offered but declined. The link between Guerlain and Firmenich was old. Guerlain had been close friends with Gérard Anthony (Azzaro Homme), and Samsara was based on a then-captive Firmenich sandalwood material. The general consensus was that a Firmenich perfumer in charge at Guerlain would spell the end of greatness, not least because Firmenich was a cutting-edge aromachemicals firm, whereas all the Guerlain greats were full of natural materials, some exclusive to Guerlain.
It turned out everyone was wrong. Wasser clearly caught the Guerlain bug, scored a major artistic hit with Guerlain Homme and derivatives, then went on to compose a slew of beautiful fragrances. He reformulated the great classics with care and a keen understanding of what Guerlain stood for. It is fair to say that, against strong headwinds, under the ownership of a group not known for a sentimental attachment to tradition, and in the face of a regulatory asteroid rain, Wasser and more recently Delphine Jelk have managed to salvage and pass on to future generations the legacy of Aimé, Jacques and Jean-Paul Guerlain.
A few words are in order before discussing individual fragrances. First, let’s be clear. None of these are like the vintage versions, assuming one can even agree about which vintage version was the reference. The reformulations fall into three categories: reasonably faithful to the original; reformulated with some loss; no relation. I am inclined to give Wasser and Jelk the benefit of the doubt throughout and to assume that this is the best anyone could do while still following regulations and maintaining a required formula cost. Bear in mind that the current marvels cost half of what the same amount of silly stuff like Tom Ford’s Cherry Smoke sells for and are therefore a relative bargain.
For paying subscribers, see reviews below of EdP concentrations of Vol de Nuit, Chant d’Arômes, Chamade, Jicky, Jardins de Bagatelle, Shalimar, l’Heure Bleue, Mitsouko, Après l’Ondée. For reviews of the pre-2008 originals see here.