Athénaïs

Parfums de Marly added Athénaïs to its Les Signatures collection in 2026. Pascal Iakovou, of Luxsure, counts it as the line’s eighth feminine entry, and the house files the fragrance among ambery florals, which it calls Ambery Floral on its website.

A favorite of Louis XIV

The name refers to Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan. Luxsure recalls that she was the king’s favorite for nearly ten years, a patron of the arts and a central figure of the royal stays at Marly, the château from which the house takes its name.

Julien Sprecher founded Parfums de Marly in 2009 and placed the house under the sign of the Château de Marly, a private residence of Louis XIV, distinct from Versailles, where the king received a small circle rather than ambassadors.

Neroli against tonka bean

As founder and artistic director, Julien Sprecher sets out the intention behind the fragrance: he wanted Athénaïs to embody a feminine energy “that fascinates as much as it liberates,” by bringing together two opposing notes, the freshness of neroli and the sensuality of tonka bean.

Parfums de Marly credits no perfumer. Luxe en France presents the creation as imagined by Julien Sprecher himself, and Pascal Iakovou singles out a formulator’s gesture: tonka bean used in two forms, a resinoid obtained by maceration and an absolute put through molecular distillation.

According to Luxsure, the neroli comes from bitter orange blossoms harvested by hand at dawn in Tunisia and Morocco, under the Orpur label and UEBT certification, which guarantee the traceability of the flowers from cultivation to sale.

A launch in two stages

Now Smell This announced the launch of Athénaïs as early as February 4, 2026. In France, the fragrance arrived on March 16 as an exclusive in the house’s three Paris boutiques, on rue François-Ier, rue Saint-Honoré and rue Vieille-du-Temple, as well as on its website.

The worldwide launch took place on March 23, 2026, according to Luxsure. Athénaïs comes in a single size, a 75 ml eau de parfum, which the house offers to engrave in its workshop.