Balmain

Upon his death in the 80s, Balmain perfumes took time to find new momentum, relying mainly on great classics such as Vent Vert or Monsieur Balmain—until the house was reborn in the new millennium...

The duo of Pierre Balmain the couturier and Germaine Cellier the nose

The enthusiasm of postwar women for Pierre Balmain’s Jolie Madame style was such that, from the opening of his fashion house in 1945, numerous successes followed one after another. All the more so since Pierre Balmain had the genius to be one of the first couturiers to launch into fashion at the same time as he launched into perfumery, a revolutionary idea for the time.

To crown the perfumed creations of the house Balmain with success, the designer surrounded himself from his earliest days in perfumery with Germaine Cellier, a perfume creator of incredible genius and multiple talents. Here too Pierre Balmain made the bold choice of a female nose, another choice quite uncommon for the time. Their collaboration was quickly crowned with success thanks to the creation in 1946 of the lovely powdery floral Élysées 64-83, the perfume of mink as the creator herself had envisioned it.

Then in 1947, Germaine Cellier and Pierre Balmain signed the beautiful and original Vent-Vert, a fruity floral breath built on an overdose of galbanum that would mark the history of the house Balmain as well as the history of perfumery, offering an innovative and light fragrance imagined for sailing and the sea.
This fine collaboration would go on to yield great perfumes such as the beautiful and elegant leathery chypre Jolie Madame, released in 1953, or the explosive and elegant aromatic citrus Monsieur Balmain, followed by Miss Balmain in 1967. Each perfume matches the inimitable style of Balmain creations, described as flattering, of an expected elegance, a first degree of seduction.

The revival of Balmain perfumes

The venerable founder and forerunner of an ultra-feminine and glamorous fashion, Pierre Balmain, passed away in 1982. Though the house Balmain mourned its venerable founder, it did not stop, for all that, always offering women the right silhouette for the right moment, as Pierre Balmain used to say, by surrounding itself with renowned designers.

In perfumery, the revival of the house Balmain came in 2006 with the release of Ambre Gris, a fine animalic and aromatic oriental dedicated to the now celebrated and vanished raw material aptly named the floating gold, amber of course. Then the year 2012 saw the rebirth, under the aegis of Olivier Rousteing, of the cult perfume released in 1979 (though it was actually created in 1931) Ivoire, modernized for the new millennium by perfumers Michel Almairac and Jacques Flori.

Ivoire represents the delicate blend between a past steeped in history and the constant pursuit of originality: this Ivoire 2012 embodies the perfect translation of the Balmain woman of today, with this heritage, this touch of nostalgia and this remarkable modernity, states Olivier Rousteing.

In the same vein of this delicate balance between olfactory traditions and assertive modernity, Extatic was released in 2014. Extatic is the olfactory metaphor of the Balmain woman: lightness of being and a strong-willed character, a delicate blend translated into fragrance through a skillful cocktail of flowers and Orient. The revival of the house Balmain is now sewn in place...