The spirit of a decade
Before the war, Guerlain released L'Heure Bleue in 1912, powdery and melancholic. The conflict then overturned society: women went to work, shortened their skirts and some began to smoke. Perfumery followed these changes. In 1917, François Coty launched Chypre, which fixed the bergamot, oakmoss and labdanum accord. In 1919, Jacques Guerlain replied with Mitsouko, a peach-tinged chypre. That same year, Ernest Daltroff created Tabac Blond for Caron, a tobacco leather designed for modern women. In Italy, Acqua di Parma was born in 1916 with Colonia, faithful to the citrus tradition of eau de Cologne. These launches reveal a perfumery willing to explore darker, drier and more abstract accords than the floral bouquets of the Belle Époque, a shift that would define the decades to come.