Family is at the heart of luxury perfumery house Annick goutal, but its focus is truly international, as Emma Reinhold discovers
With the frequency of launches at an all time high, many in the perfume industry are dismayed that a fragrance, once seen as a treasured luxury has in many people’s eyes become a mundane commodity. However the noses behind Annick Goutal beg to differ. The quintessentially French perfume house prides itself on the traditional craftsmanship and exclusivity of its fragrances and it is this attention to detail that is finding a growing voice both in France and further afield.
The house, which was founded in 1981 by the late Annick Goutal, is now run by her daughter Camille, aided by in-house nose Isabelle Doyen. Their philosophy of transforming emotions into fragrances is mirrored by a close working relationship and has prompted Doyen to describe Camille as part of her extended family. Referring to the dynamics of their partnership, Doyen comments: “At Annick Goutal you have a nose with two sets of nostrils.”
Their latest creation, Un Matin D’Orage (One Stormy Morning) underlines this. The fragrance is a blend of white gardenia; sharpened by citrus notes, green perilla leaves and peppery ginger. The heart features magnolia and jasmine sambac, which blends into a base of champaca.
“Isabelle and I are fascinated by the scent of flowers after a storm,” explains Camille Goutal. “The scent we wanted to capture was that just before a storm when everything is electric and then afterwards when the ground is soft and wrapped in mist. I was envisaging a Japanese garden filled with gardenia bushes.”
Indeed Japan is important to Goutal and Doyen and was the inspiration for the brand’s classic Gardenia Passion fragrance. “When we composed the fragrance we wanted it to be like a movie, with the scent being like a camera moving around to build a picture,” adds Doyen. “We wanted the consumer to get all of this from the scents coming from the bottle.”
Doyen tells SPC that she is constantly looking for new ingredients to test and try in her fragrance creations and this has led to some interesting discoveries.
“With Un Matin D’Orage we focused on the living flower and its scent floating on the air rather than the cut flower, and papyrus was another very interesting note we used in Les Orientalistes. But there are always some ingredients you want to use but don’t know how to use them.”
Every fragrance holds a special place in Doyen’s heart – from Vetiver, the very first fragrance she created with Annick Goutal, to Ce Soir ou Jamais, the last fragrance she worked on with Annick.
“Everyone has a story,” she explains. “Ce Soir ou Jamais took ten years to create. Annick and I had such a perfect idea of it. We wanted to reach perfection but we could not. Perfection is hard to come by. It’s like a radio station that you want to reach and if you don’t get it exactly clear then it’s not right.”
But sometimes it does happen, according to Doyen. “Usually it is only years later that you think you have done a good job. The best feeling is when sometimes I smell a really good perfume on a woman and when I ask her what it is she says it’s from the Goutal family. Then you know you have done it right.”
This attention to detail extends to all facets of the Annick Goutal business. From the hand wrapped cellophane and ribbons that adorn the fragrance bottles to the careful, considered approach to expansion, the house appears quietly confident.
In 1985 Annick Goutal became part of the Taittinger Group, and then in 2005 the group was acquired by the Starwood Capital Group, which gave the brand the chance to eye international expansion. There are now nine boutiques in France, seven of which are in Paris, as well as stores in Brussels, Strasburg and London. In addition to the perfumery line, the boutiques stock skin care, lingerie and jewellery lines which all echo the Annick Goutal philosophy.
“Annick Goutal is a French brand with French heritage and we have ambitious plans to grow the business,” says Russel Sternlicht, president and md, Starwood Capital. “In London alone we believe there is the potential to grow the number of stores from two to five and have a flagship store as well. There is a huge market out there for Annick Goutal but expansion has to be done in the right way ”
And with such an eye for detail, the fragrance house could be perfectly positioned to do this.