Solférino Paris: Parisian Memories in Scent, Interparfums’ First In-House Brand

“What truly sets us apart from our competitors is not the price, the product, or even the fragrance itself. It is the story we tell.”

— Philippe Bénacin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Interparfums

Basic Information
The Founder and the Brand’s Beginnings
What Defines the Brand
1. A Fragrance Philosophy: Bottling Paris
2. Bottle and Packaging Design: Architecture Within a Flacon
The Fragrance Lineup
Incidentally…

Basic Information

Established: 2025
Founder: Philippe Bénacin
Official website: solferino-paris.com
The name “Solférino” comes from rue de Solférino, or Solférino Street, in Paris’s 7th arrondissement.

The Founder and the Brand’s Beginnings

A Chance Encounter with Fragrance

Philippe Bénacin was born on January 15, 1959. He has continued to live in Paris and graduated from ESSEC Business School, known as an elite institution. His encounter with perfume arose not from a passion, but from something closer to chance.

“I knew absolutely nothing about perfume, to be honest. While finishing business school, I was conducting market research for other companies. One of those studies was for a fashion company that wanted to launch a fragrance. That was the first time in my life that I had set foot in a perfume shop,” he later recalled with a laugh.

While at ESSEC, Bénacin met fellow student Jean Madar. The two went straight to work after graduating, co-founding Interparfums SA in France in 1982. Their first business was market research commissioned by fashion companies and other clients. One day, however, the head of a company they were researching suggested that they work together on developing the fragrance itself. That proposal steered their careers toward the perfume industry.

A Revolutionary in the Licensing Business

Interparfums built its growth around a business model connecting brands with the perfume business: signing licensing agreements with well-known brands, then developing, manufacturing, and selling perfumes under those brands’ names. Spectacular success did not come immediately. The first ten years after its launch were a period of steady, patient work.

The turning point came in 1993, when the company signed a licensing agreement with the British fashion brand Burberry. “The Burberry agreement was a definite turning point. Sales were almost zero when we signed, but once we began launching fragrances in 1995, they grew to a substantial level within three or four years,” Bénacin recalls. This success enabled Interparfums to expand rapidly, subsequently adding one agreement after another with global brands including Montblanc, Jimmy Choo, Coach, and Van Cleef & Arpels.

In 2012, however, Burberry decided to bring its fragrance business in-house and terminate its agreement with Interparfums at the end of that year. An operational transition period ran until the end of March 2013. Losing roughly 50% of sales at once was a major test, but Bénacin rebuilt the business by signing new licensing agreements and overcame the crisis. Consolidated sales reached €798.5 million in 2023, and the company has at one point been described as having a market capitalization of around €3.5 billion.

In 2011, Bénacin received the Prix de l’Audace Créatrice, or Creative Audacity Award, from French Prime Minister François Fillon. In 2021, he was inducted into The Fragrance Foundation’s Hall of Fame. He is also a musician and a collector of American pop art.

10, Rue de Solférino: The Building That Gave Birth to the Brand

In 2021, Interparfums acquired an 18th-century hôtel particulier at 10, rue de Solférino in Paris’s 7th arrondissement for €125 million. An hôtel particulier is a mansion-style residence historically owned by aristocrats or wealthy households. Comprising three buildings and two courtyards, the property covers approximately 3,700 square meters. With its black-and-white checkerboard marble floors and high ceilings, it occupies an ideal position between Boulevard Saint-Germain and the banks of the Seine.

Formerly known as the headquarters of France’s Socialist Party, or Parti socialiste, the property became Interparfums’ new headquarters in 2022. Its renovation was undertaken by the architecture firm Jean-Paul Viguier & Associés, and American pop art by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein decorates its spaces.

“The sound of Solférino is appealing. And I felt that this historic Parisian building would be the perfect starting point for a story celebrating the city’s iconic places,” Bénacin has said of the brand’s inspiration. His phrase “the idea came from the office” succinctly captures its essence.

After 40 Years, the First Brand Developed In-House

For many years, Interparfums remained a company specializing in fragrance development for licensed brands. “This was the first time we made the important creative decisions internally rather than with another brand. That meant something important to me,” Bénacin has said.

“After 40 years, we launched our first own brand.” Spoken with pride, these words convey the quiet emotion of a man who had devoted so long to the licensing business. With the niche fragrance market continuing to grow strongly, at around 15% a year by value and 7% by volume, he says, “We judged that the time was right in the market.” Development from the brand’s conception to launch took approximately 18 months.

In July 2025, Solférino Paris formally announced itself to the world. Its first flagship store opened that September at 310, rue Saint-Honoré in Paris.

What Defines the Brand

A Fragrance Philosophy: Bottling Paris

Bénacin’s approach to developing Solférino Paris fragrances was bold and straightforward. He gave briefs to ten individual perfumers or teams among the world’s leading creators, asking, “I would like each of you to express freely, through scent, the Paris of your own dreams.” “First we establish a brief for the whole collection. The theme is Paris. Then we give it to ten master perfumers and ask them to bring us three versions,” he explains of the process. The team then selected and refined the submissions, arriving at the final ten fragrances.

The perfumers assembled were leading creators from three major fragrance-material and composition companies: DSM-Firmenich, Givaudan, and IFF (International Flavors & Fragrances). Each fragrance is assigned a number, from 01 to 10, and gives olfactory form to a particular Parisian place or experience.

The whole collection is designed to be gender-neutral, with the intention that anyone can wear a fragrance as their own. The Perfume Society described them as “fragrances that whisper” and as scents that “trust the wearer to complete the story.”

Bottle and Packaging Design: Architecture Within a Flacon

Solférino Paris’s visual identity draws inspiration from the architecture of its headquarters itself. Three symbols embodying the brand’s identity appear throughout the fragrance collection.

The S10 Sun: A sun motif with the S10 logo at its center. Symbolizing Paris as the “City of Light,” it is engraved on the bottle cap and the front of the packaging.
The S10 Crest: Applied to the bottle and packaging as a seal in the same deep green as the imposing doors of the headquarters at 10, rue de Solférino.
The Checkerboard, or Damier: A pattern inspired by the black-and-white marble floor in the headquarters’ entrance, incorporated into the packaging design.

The smooth, rounded glass bottle is embossed with the S10 crest, and a deep green ribbon is tied around its neck. On the back of the packaging, an illustration depicts the Parisian scene expressed by each fragrance, adding a visual narrative. The bottle and packaging were designed by Carré Basset, a design agency that also works for Van Cleef & Arpels.

Marketing Director Victoria Scalia says, “In designing it, we drew inspiration from this building’s architecture and its story. We wanted to tell a Parisian story.”

The opening of the flacon is echoed in the flagship store’s entrance, which features the same black-and-white stone flooring and wall moldings as the headquarters. This continuity of experience across headquarters, flagship store, flacon, and packaging reinforces the perfume brand’s coherence and conviction.

International coverage at launch listed 75 ml at €160 and 125 ml at €260. The official Japanese announcement in September 2025 gave 70 ml at ¥29,040 and 125 ml at ¥47,080, so the smaller size is recorded differently across the materials.

The Fragrance Lineup

Solférino Paris’s first collection consists of ten eaux de parfum, numbered 01 through 10. The following summarizes each fragrance to the extent that its details could be confirmed.

No.	Name	Fragrance Family	Perfumer	Fragrance Company	Inspiration
01	Rêverie sur Seine	Woody neroli	Nathalie Lorson	DSM-Firmenich	The Seine
02	10, Solférino	Floral rose	Antoine Maisondieu	Givaudan	The mansion at 10, rue de Solférino
03	Thé au Palais Royal	Oolong tea	Jean-Christophe Hérault	IFF	The Palais-Royal
04	Folies à Montmartre	Black leather	Jordi Fernandez	Givaudan	Montmartre
05	Un Samedi à Paris	Woody gourmand	Tanguy Guesnet	IFF	The area around the Eiffel Tower
06	Paris Radieux	Solar gardenia	Yann Vasnier	Givaudan	Place de l’Étoile (the Arc de Triomphe)
07	Minuit Rue Princesse	Amber oud	Coralie Spicher & Fabrice Pellegrin	DSM-Firmenich	A night on Rue Princesse
08	Un Baiser Place Vendôme	Iridescent sandalwood	Shyamala Maisondieu	Givaudan	Place Vendôme
09	Coup de Foudre Quai Voltaire	Incandescent amber	Anne Flipo	IFF	Quai Voltaire
10	L’été Avenue Gabriel	Fruity mirabelle suede	Amandine Clerc-Marie	DSM-Firmenich	Avenue Gabriel

Responding to the brief, each perfumer distilled a personal interpretation of Paris into scent. Nathalie Lorson, who created No. 01, Rêverie sur Seine, describes her work as “an ode to lightness, symbolized by the sweetness of neroli. An invitation to lose oneself in memories along the Seine.” Coralie Spicher and Fabrice Pellegrin, the perfumers behind No. 07, Minuit Rue Princesse, explain: “This opulent fragrance is the essence of a place of celebration, as though dance steps were echoing through a magnificent mansion on Boulevard Saint-Germain.”

Bénacin himself reportedly names No. 10, L’été Avenue Gabriel, as his favorite. Calling it “an oriental fragrance of mirabelle plum and iris, which brings summer to mind,” he says it combines with smoky suede base notes to leave a sensual trail.

About No. 02, 10, Solférino
Created by Antoine Maisondieu, this could be called the collection’s signature fragrance. An homage to the mansion at 10, rue de Solférino itself, it centers on rose. Maisondieu says, “Classic yet avant-garde, this sumptuous rose is a tribute to the grandeur of an hôtel particulier with centuries of history.”

The range also includes a Discovery Set of ten 2 ml samples, allowing all ten fragrances to be tried, and a Travel Set of five 15 ml travel sprays.

Incidentally…

The Double Meaning of the Rose
Rose is the star of No. 02, 10, Solférino, the fragrance in the collection directly themed around 10, rue de Solférino. Considering that the building once housed the French Socialist Party’s headquarters and that the party’s symbol is a rose, the choice may be more than a coincidence. Was it deliberately included by the perfumer, or did the memory of history naturally find its way into the scent? No official comment on this point could be confirmed, but it is an intriguing correspondence.

Business First, Passion Later
Bénacin, who says, “My family had nothing to do with perfume, and I didn’t even wear it myself,” went on to lead one of the world’s largest fragrance groups. His story also illustrates a freedom from the industry’s conventions. Indeed, in honoring him with its Hall of Fame award, The Fragrance Foundation described him as having “revolutionized the way fragrances are licensed and distributed.”

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