Parfums de la Bastide

At a Glance

Founded: 2014
Founders: William Bouheret & Anne-Cécile Vidal
Official website: English (Japanese distributor: here)

The Founders

Parfums de la Bastide, whose name means “the scents of a home or country house (a farmhouse in Provence),” was founded in Provence in southern France in 2014 by William Bouheret and Anne-Cécile Vidal.

William Bouheret worked for seven years from 1996 at Wella, the haircare brand of Coty (in Japanese), before serving as chief financial officer of P&G Prestige in Hong Kong and chief operating officer of Max Mara Parfums in Milan (September 2003–April 2008). In 2008, he joined Goutal Paris as managing director and rose to the position of chief operating officer.

Anne-Cécile Vidal, meanwhile, spent four years as a buyer at the venerable Paris department store Le Bon Marché, then nearly eight years as a manager and director in Dior (in Japanese)’s couture division. She subsequently spent four years in an executive-level role at Annick Goutal (in Japanese).

The two felt that the perfume industry had become too focused on image and marketing rather than scent. They decided to create a brand without marketing, sales targets, or predetermined budgets, one that would follow their own timetable rather than the market’s.

All our products are inspired by different places in Provence, so I think they make you feel as though you are traveling through the region.

William Bouheret

What Matters to the Brand

Our greatest source of inspiration is French wineries. We were particularly influenced by the philosophy of high-end wine estates. Wineries producing “grand vin,” meaning great wine, place enormous importance on what is called “terroir”: the place, climate, and soil in which the grapes grow. We thought we would try doing the same thing with perfume. For us, our “terroir” is Provence in the south of France. The brand grew out of our desire to bring out the best of its climate and character and express it through fragrance.

William Bouheret

The brand was named “Parfums de la Bastide,” meaning “the scents of a farmhouse,” because the farmhouse embodied the appeal of Provence as a whole. Provence is a wonderful place where tradition and modern life come together, and Parfums de la Bastide was born to express and share a love of the region.

Fragrance Materials and Ingredients

Like many other brands, we could create perfumes from memories, emotions, or dreams, but that is not what we want to do.

Our approach is to return to our roots. The raw materials come first and lie at the heart of the creation.

William Bouheret

The fragrance materials generally come from Robertet (in Japanese), which the two founders consider the supplier of the most beautiful natural materials. The central theme of each fragrance is drawn from the nature of Provence, such as its flowers and fruit: lemons from Menton, figs (in Japanese) from Solliès, roses (in Japanese) from Grasse, blood oranges from Vallauris, lavender from Sault, and violets (in Japanese) from Tourrette. Here, too, the brand’s love of Provence is unmistakable.

Each product is made by expert artisans in the relevant field: Robertet’s perfumers, master candlemakers, and master soapmakers. Moreover, all of them work in companies or factories in Provence, showing just how committed the brand is to the region.
Incidentally, when the brand began, 30 Robertet perfumers were invited to submit creations. Five were selected from more than 200 submissions and, interestingly, out of respect for the perfumers’ creativity, they were reportedly accepted “without any revisions,” something almost unheard of in ordinary practice.

Every fragrance has a concentration of at least 12%, and the brand avoids colorants and UV filters so that nothing comes between the skin and the fragrance.

Finally, it is one of the few brands to state explicitly that it carries out both maturation (in Japanese) and maceration (in Japanese) properly.

Packaging

To make the packaging environmentally friendly, unnecessary elements are removed and excessive emphasis on packaging is avoided. The brand uses paper whose recyclability is readily apparent and screen-printing techniques that require less ink (also used by Kilian (in Japanese) on the bottles in The Liquors collection).

Every product is wrapped in tissue paper and placed in a pouch bearing a hand-stamped logo.

Many brands now describe themselves as natural, but their distinctive scent signatures can leave something to be desired. We offer home fragrances that have a signature scent of their own while occupying a luxury position.

William Bouheret