My name has the potential to become the next Estée Lauder (in Japanese).
Annick Goutal
A Life in Perfumery
A Multitalented Third Daughter
Born in Aix-en-Provence, France, in 1946, the third of eight children, Annick Goutal spent much of her childhood in her father’s chocolate shop, endlessly tying ribbons around bags filled with chocolates.
As she became interested in music, Annick fell in love with the piano. Her talent was such that, at 16, she won a prize at the Versailles conservatory and was accomplished enough to be allowed to perform in concerts. She studied piano for about five years in total and even went to London as an au pair, a form of study abroad involving living with a host family, to continue her studies.
Music and perfume are very close to one another. They involve the same kinds of sensitivity and emotion, and there is a connection in the way these are expressed.
Annick Goutal
A friend of her au pair host family in London was the celebrated fashion photographer David Bailey. Recognizing her beauty at once, Bailey quickly helped her find work as an international model. Persuaded by friends that she should become a model, Annick abandoned her dream of becoming a pianist and joined the agency Paris Planning for at least four years.
My mother was captivating, both at home and outside it. When she entered a room, everyone turned to look, and men in particular would let out a sigh of admiration.
Camille Goutal
A Turning Point and a Meeting
Feeling that modeling was not what she wanted to do, Annick returned to Grasse after a total of ten years in the profession and opened an antique furniture shop called Folavril. The name came from a main character in Boris Vian’s novel L’Herbe Rouge (The Red Grass). In 1975, she met a man who shared her interest in collecting antiques, and they had a child together: her daughter, Camille Goutal (in Japanese).
Two years after Camille was born, Annick became ill and had to close the antique shop. Micheline Perrot, the mother of her divorced husband, then invited her to go into the beauty business together. Micheline was also Camille’s godmother and was herself divorced. She had been buying a luxurious face cream from the Soyer sisters, who sold cosmetics in Geneva, Switzerland, and when one of the sisters died, she had purchased the rights to its formula.
Annick agreed to begin selling the Swiss face cream from her home on the condition that they change its packaging, which she felt was out of date, and its scent. Drawing on her artistic sense and her childhood experience tying ribbons in her father’s chocolate shop, she gave it confectionery-like packaging finished with an elegant ribbon. This was, in fact, the very first packaging for what would become Annick Goutal.
The cream was excellent, but its slightly odd smell bothered the two women, so they ordered fragrance samples to give it a new scent. A sample from Robertet (in Japanese) caught Annick’s attention. Robertet was still a small company at the time, but it supplied fragrances of unrivaled quality to Guerlain (in Japanese) and Chanel (in Japanese). Annick immediately called Robertet, made an appointment, and went to its Paris office, where she met a perfumer: the company’s head perfumer, Henri Sorsana (in Japanese).
Around this time, Annick had divorced and rekindled a youthful romance with Alain Meunier, whom she had met at a concert 20 years earlier. It was her second marriage. Alain brought his daughter Charlotte into the family.
Alain was a renowned cellist, and one of Annick’s greatest pleasures was composing fragrances at her perfumer’s organ (in Japanese) while listening to him rehearse for concerts. He was also a romantic who bought her white flowers every week.
The men’s fragrance she created for him, Sable, expressed the scent of the beach on Île de Ré, where they had a house. Apparently, other musicians, as well as Alain, often wore it.
The Birth of the Brand
Many young perfumers could be more creative if they did not work for big brands. Big brands destroy their creativity. The first thing these brands do is teach them to imitate, because clients commissioning perfumes want something they already know.
Annick Goutal
In 1976, Annick became Henri Sorsana’s apprentice. While selling the cream from her home, she trained in perfumery at Robertet for four years, and continued composing fragrances with him for roughly another three years afterward. Then, in December 1980, she and Micheline opened a shop in a former secondhand bookshop on Rue de Bellechasse on Paris’s Left Bank. This was Annick Goutal. Her first perfume was named Folavril, after her former antique shop. One year later, in 1981, she released Eau d’Hadrien, the celebrated fragrance still sold today, and gradually began to make a name for herself.
Annick’s older sister Marie-France Cohen and Bernard Cohen founded the children’s clothing brand Bonpoint. Annick’s two older sisters helped her financially from the beginning of her own brand. In gratitude, Annick created a children’s fragrance called Bonpoint.
In 1985, the company was acquired by the Taittinger group, famous for its champagne, and became known internationally, particularly in the United States. It was around this time that Annick met Isabelle Doyen (in Japanese), the perfumer who would help guide Annick Goutal for many years.
The Taittinger group was subsequently acquired by Starwood Capital.
In 1999, Annick died of breast and ovarian cancer at the young age of 53. The company passed to her daughter Camille Goutal and Isabelle Doyen, Annick’s longtime creative partner.
Perfume helps us find our way through the labyrinth of memory.
Annick Goutal
Our perfumes are inspired by a fusion of poetry and nature, plants and culture. Each perfume tells a story that can be experienced on the skin.
Annick Goutal
What Matters to the Brand
Names: Each perfume is named like a novel, with a title intended to open a door to the imagination.
Fragrances: The compositions are designed to let you experience a story through your skin and senses.
The Color of the Perfume and Its Bottle: With little money at first, Annick reportedly visited a glassmaker and asked to see all its past bottles. She found a feminine, elegant design and used it as the basis for the brand’s bottle. No colorants are added to the fragrances. Refills for perfumes and other products have also been available since the brand’s founding, and the paper used for their boxes is kept to a minimum.
The secret of Annick Goutal perfumes lies in their exceptional ability to translate emotion into scent. Each perfume expresses a happy moment, a precious feeling, or a powerful memory connected with a particular event or someone we love.
Camille Goutal
A Few More Details…
• She loved J. S. Bach, particularly the Suites for Unaccompanied Cello and the Goldberg Variations. She also apparently enjoyed listening to Schumann, Schubert, and Chopin’s nocturnes.
• Annick loved Guerlain fragrances and was apparently particularly fond of L’Heure Bleue.
コメント