SHISEIDO: From Ginza to the World, Fragrances Embodying the Beauty of the East

“Beauty is universal. Therefore, the products that serve beauty should also be universal.”

— Arinobu Fukuhara, founder of Shiseido

Basic Information

Year founded: 1872, with full-scale development of the fragrance business from 1917 onward
Founder: Arinobu Fukuhara
Official website: https://www.shiseido.com

The Founder and the Brand’s Origins

Beginnings as a Naval Pharmacist

Born in 1848 in Awa, now Tateyama in Chiba Prefecture, Arinobu Fukuhara grew up as the son of a practitioner of traditional herbal medicine, yet developed a strong interest in Western medicine. He studied Western pharmacology and eventually rose to become chief pharmacist of the Japanese Navy. While serving in the military, however, he grew deeply dissatisfied with the quality of medicines in Japan at the time. “Take in everything good in the world and create something new”: this was the conviction that continued to burn within him.

Shiseido Pharmacy Opens in Ginza

In 1872, while still in his early twenties, Arinobu Fukuhara opened Japan’s first fully fledged private Western-style pharmacy in Tokyo’s Ginza district, then a center of the country’s modernization. Its name, Shiseido, comes from a passage in the Chinese classic Yi Jing, or Book of Changes. “Shi sei” means “where everything is born,” and “do” means “house”; the passage as a whole can be read as “Praise the virtue of the earth. All things are born from it.” The name was also a philosophical declaration that went beyond simply naming a pharmacy.

Fukuhara was also the first person to put into practice in Japan the idea of separating prescribing from dispensing medicines, a concept previously absent from the country. In the early Meiji era, he pioneered the system now taken for granted, in which a doctor writes the prescription and a pharmacist dispenses it.

The Shift to Cosmetics and the Second Generation: Shinzo Fukuhara

The founder’s son, Shinzo Fukuhara, was entrusted with running Shiseido in 1915 and decisively shifted the business’s focus from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics. Deeply devoted to painting, photography, and art, he established Shiseido’s design department, the Ishō-bu, in 1916, an organization that would lead to today’s Shiseido Creative. He established a philosophy of bringing products into the world as “commercial goods that are works of art.”

That same year, 1915, saw the creation of the camellia-inspired Hanatsubaki trademark design. The camellia is a symbol of Japanese beauty, and the flower has remained part of Shiseido’s brand identity to this day.

The Birth of a Perfume: Hanatsubaki, 1917

In 1917, Shiseido released the first full-scale perfume made in Japan by Japanese creators. Its name was Hanatsubaki, or “camellia blossom.” Because actual camellia flowers have very little scent, it was composed as a floral fragrance that let the wearer carry “the image of a camellia blossom.” The bottle design drew on the modernism then popular in Europe and America, while adding a substantial, distinctly Japanese character. This bottle is the starting point for all Shiseido perfumes.

Reaching the World: Zen, 1964

In 1964, Japan hosted the Tokyo Olympics after a remarkable recovery from the devastation of the Second World War. Taking advantage of this historic opportunity, Shiseido released its first fragrance intended for overseas markets that same year. It was called Zen.

This creation, which astutely responded to Western interest in the East, was developed through exhaustive research into American women’s preferences. It was composed by IFF perfumer Josephine Catapano, who also created Guy Laroche’s Fidji (1966) and Estée Lauder’s Youth-Dew (1953). The “Japaneseness” symbolized by the name Zen was thoroughly woven into both the fragrance and its packaging.

The bottle was designed by Takeo Yamamoto of Shiseido’s design department. Drawing inspiration from sixteenth-century Kōdai-ji maki-e lacquerwork, he depicted autumn grasses and autumn-garden motifs in gold against black lacquer. Incorporating the treatment of nature associated with Rinpa, the artistic movement that arose in seventeenth-century Kyoto, the bottle became a unique work of art clothed in the mystique of the East.

The following year, 1965, Shiseido established a local subsidiary in New York. Later, third-generation leader Yoshiharu Fukuhara moved to the United States as its president to develop the American market. Zen was also selected for Japan Airlines’ in-flight sales and gradually gained a foothold in Europe and America. Following an exclusive contract with Japanese model Sayoko Yamaguchi from 1973 to 1986, the fragrance eventually came to be “reimported” to Japan under the name Zen.

Meeting Serge Lutens: A Revolution in the 1980s

The greatest turning point in Shiseido’s perfume history came through a collaboration with a French artist that began in 1980. Serge Lutens, a photographer, filmmaker, makeup artist, and later an exceptional perfume creator, was born in Lille in northern France in 1942. He started working at a local hair salon at 14, then moved to Paris and collaborated at French Vogue with legendary photographers such as Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. From 1968 to 1980, he served as creative director for Christian Dior’s beauty line, creating the brand’s first makeup collection.

In 1980, Lutens became Shiseido’s artistic director. His aesthetic judgment and creativity became a major driving force behind the company’s full-scale expansion into Europe. In 1982, not long after his appointment, Lutens introduced his first fragrance in collaboration with Shiseido: Nombre Noir.

Created by perfumer Jean-Yves Leroy, this masterpiece used an unprecedentedly large quantity of damascenone, a synthetic fragrance component associated with Damask rose. The deep rose character produced by combining it with an expensive natural extract of osmanthus, or sweet olive, astonished the perfume world at the time. However, the instability of light-sensitive damascenone, high bottle-production costs, and leakage problems reportedly led Shiseido to the painful decision to dispose of all remaining stock within a few years of launch. From the 1990s onward, critic Luca Turin’s praise of it as “one of the five great perfumes in the world” cemented its legendary status. It is now so rare that a single bottle can change hands for hundreds of thousands of yen.

The Brand’s Commitments

A Philosophy of Bringing East and West Together

At the heart of Shiseido’s approach to fragrance is founder Arinobu’s philosophy of “bringing East and West together.” It incorporates advanced Western chemistry and perfumery techniques while weaving Japanese aesthetics into its spirit: wabi-sabi, ma, or meaningful space, and “beauty through subtraction.” The stillness of Zen, the pure beauty of the camellia, and the delicacy of maki-e have shaped the worlds of its perfumes in successive eras.

Founder Arinobu’s words, “Beauty is universal. Therefore, the products that serve beauty should also be universal,” are still passed down as an expression of an approach to perfume that transcends borders and cultures.

A Culture of Designing Bottles as “Works of Art”

From an early stage, Shiseido viewed perfume bottles as “art” rather than simply “products.” From incorporating Kōdai-ji maki-e into the 1964 Zen bottle, to the distinctively curved Féminité du Bois bottle designed by Serge Lutens, with its cinched, old-rose-colored form, and the tea-room-inspired design of the 2007 Zen bottle, fragrance and visual art have consistently been conceived as one. In 2016, Shiseido Gallery held the exhibition “Les Parfums Japonais: A Century of Fragrance Design,” bringing together the history of perfume-bottle design.

Working with Talented Outside Creators

A particularly notable feature of Shiseido’s perfume history is its willingness to engage leading outside creators. From IFF’s Josephine Catapano for Zen (1964), to Jean-Yves Leroy for Nombre Noir (1982), and Pierre Bourdon and Christopher Sheldrake for Féminité du Bois (1992), it has entrusted Japanese aesthetics to outstanding perfumers of each era. One could say that it moved beyond the constraint of “Japanese culture made by Japanese people” to seek “images of Japan envisioned by leading international perfumers.”

The Fragrance Lineup

The Original Fragrance: Hanatsubaki (1917)

Created as Japan’s first full-scale domestically produced perfume, Hanatsubaki is the starting point for all Shiseido fragrances. It was introduced in Europe and America under the name Euthrixine. Rather than directly reproducing a camellia’s scent, it was composed as a floral fragrance that let the wearer carry “the image of a camellia blossom.” The bottle stopper was decorated with a floral relief. It was later discontinued, but returned in a limited reissue in 2008.

A Legendary Fragrance: Zen (1964 Onward)

The first perfume Shiseido released to the world. A chypre by Josephine Catapano, it develops from top notes of hyacinth, galbanum, bergamot, and orange blossom through a heart including carnation, rose, and narcissus, to a base including musk, sandalwood, and oakmoss. Inspired by Kōdai-ji maki-e, the black-lacquer-and-gold bottle is still celebrated as a design masterpiece distilling “the mystique of the East.”

Zen subsequently underwent several renewals to reflect changing times, reborn in modern versions by Nathalie Lorson in 2000 and by Michel Almairac and Michael Förster in 2007. Under the concept “from stillness to movement,” the 2007 version combines refreshing citrus and fruit notes of grapefruit and pineapple with a floral heart of blue rose and freesia, and a warm woody base of patchouli and amber. It became a hit, with factory shipments exceeding 1.3 million units in the first year after launch.

An Elusive Masterpiece: Nombre Noir (1982)

Created by Serge Lutens with perfumer Jean-Yves Leroy, this challenging work holds a place in perfumery history. It used an unprecedented quantity of damascenone, said to be unstable in light, and is thought to have been discontinued within a few years because of issues including ingredient stability and production costs. Shiseido reportedly recalled its remaining stock to Japan, after which the perfume became legendary. Critic Luca Turin’s praise of it as “one of the top five perfumes in the world,” as quoted in Chandler Burr’s book The Emperor of Scent, further heightened its aura of rarity. It can now trade for hundreds of thousands to millions of yen.

A Bottle That Revolutionized Perfume History: Féminité du Bois (1992)

A masterpiece created in 1992 by perfumers Pierre Bourdon and Christopher Sheldrake under the direction of Serge Lutens. That landmark year also saw the launches of Thierry Mugler’s Angel and Issey Miyake’s L’Eau d’Issey. Féminité du Bois, however, pointed in a completely different direction from either of them.

Originally launched as Shiseido Féminité du Bois, the perfume layers honey, spices including cinnamon, clove, and cardamom, peach, plum, violet, vanilla, and musk over a base of Moroccan Atlas cedar. It was described as giving cedarwood the beauty of a woman’s curves. It would be no exaggeration to say that this fragrance opened up the “woody-fruity” olfactory genre.

Lutens’s long-held passion for cedar is said to date back to his first visit to Morocco in 1968. He is reported to have said, “Cedar is the only tree said to have been planted by God’s own hands.”

Féminité du Bois later moved to the Serge Lutens brand. In a 2022 interview marking its thirtieth anniversary, the formula at that time was described as containing 60% cedarwood, along with orange-blossom and plum notes.

Murasaki

A floral chypre launched in Japan in 1980 and later offered in Europe and America. It moves from top notes of bergamot, galbanum, hyacinth, and gardenia through a heart of rose, orris, and lily of the valley, to a base of vetiver, leather, and oakmoss. The dark-purple bottle was later discontinued; from the 1990s onward, the presentation changed to clear glass with a purple cap.

Ginza Eau de Parfum Murasaki, offered as a separate creation, has a bold bottle designed by Constance Guisset, with a black dagger piercing a substantial block of glass. The fragrance develops from top notes of violet, Fuji apple, and pomegranate through a heart of jasmine, wisteria, and freesia, to a base of sandalwood and amber.

Ever Bloom / Ginza Flower

Released in 32 countries in Europe and the Middle East in 2015, Ever Bloom is an important fragrance marking Shiseido’s full-scale return to the perfume business as a global brand. Its perfumer is Aurélien Guichard, who also created Issey Miyake’s Pleats Please and Narciso Rodriguez’s Narciso. It is a white floral fragrance, and Ever Bloom Ginza Flower followed in 2017.

The Ginza Collection

The current principal fragrance line takes its theme from Ginza, Shiseido’s birthplace. It expresses a contemporary image of a woman embodying the contrasts of being “delicate yet strong, intellectual yet passionate.” The range includes Eau de Parfum, with a floral heart of jasmine, magnolia, and Japanese orchid over a woody base of hinoki, patchouli, and sandalwood; Intense, a floral amber with Damask rose and blackcurrant leaf, created by Takasago’s Karine Dubreuil and Maïa Lernout; and Murasaki, as well as a Night version.

By the Way…

The Presence of Sayoko Yamaguchi
Zen is inseparable from Sayoko Yamaguchi, one of Japan’s leading models. Under an exclusive contract from 1973 to 1986, she appeared in Zen advertisements and became the face of “Zen” itself, as well as a symbolic figure in the perfume’s “reimportation” from Europe and America to Japan. She is also said to have brought Shiseido and Serge Lutens together.

“Without Lutens, There Would Have Been No European Expansion”
In its 2015 press release announcing a memorandum of understanding to acquire the Serge Lutens trademark, Shiseido stated explicitly that “thanks to this collaboration, Shiseido succeeded in entering the European market.” Its collaboration with Lutens, spanning at least 35 years, also brought Shiseido worldwide recognition as a haven for niche perfume.

SOUL of MOTION (2017)
In an unusual collaboration with Mazda, Shiseido created SOUL of MOTION, a fragrance translating the “KODO design” of a concept car into scent. Its packaging won gold in the packaging category at Germany’s iF Design Award 2017.

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