1881 Homme

Cerruti entered perfumery in 1978 with Nino Cerruti pour Homme. Twelve years later, in 1990, the house launched 1881 pour Homme, composed by Martin Gras. The fragrance became the brand’s masculine mainstay and gave its name to an entire line.

A feminine version with the same name, 1881 pour Femme, came out in 1995. Its bottle does not take up the shape of the masculine one, and its composition, a floral one, turns its back on the 1990 fougère.

A founding year for a name

The number does not refer to a perfumery date. In 1881, the Cerruti brothers founded a business in Biella, in Piedmont, producing high-quality wools and fabrics. The family firm gave its name to the brand as well as to the fragrance.

According to the house, Nino Cerruti took over the business at the age of twenty, in the 1950s. In 1967, he opened his fashion house in Paris, on rue Royale, and built the brand’s reputation on menswear.

Successive licenses

The fragrance has changed hands without ever leaving the shelves. In 2010, Coty Prestige, then the license holder, chose singer Marc Lavoine to embody this classic. Since 2018, the Cerruti fragrance license has belonged to the British company Designer Parfums.

What the house says today

The house presents 1881 pour Homme as a green, woody and spicy fragrance that combines the sunny vigor of the Mediterranean with woody hints of moss. It also classifies it among aromatic, woody fougères.

A whole line

The name 1881 now covers an entire line. Around the 1990 masculine and the 1995 feminine have come many variations, including Sport, Signature, Essentiel, Riviera, Silver, Silver Night, Essence, and Rêve de Roses.