Champs-Élysées: Sophie Marceau, one of the first faces of the Guerlain campaigns. The year 1996 marked a decisive turning point for Guerlain. Recently affiliated with the LVMH group, the house was no longer family-owned as it had been for a century and a half of perfume creation.
While the great Jean-Paul Guerlain composed most of the great Guerlain fragrances that marked the second half of the 20th century on his own, with Champs Elysées in 1996, renewal was clearly underway. It was primarily Olivier Cresp and Sylvaine Delacourte who brought to life this charming spring cocktail, created in honor of the iconic Guerlain boutique on the Champs Elysées. A wind of floral change was blowing through the venerable house of Guerlain!
Champs-Elysées, or the spring fragrance signed Jean-Paul Guerlain and Olivier Cresp
The year 1996 was a significant one in the magnificent heritage of the Guerlain perfume house. Indeed, that year, the Guerlain family of perfumers, for the first time, gave up part of its family capital; the Guerlain family, and Jean-Paul Guerlain in particular, was therefore no longer sole master of the house.
As for the creative work behind the fragrances, things changed. The perfumer heir to Aimé Guerlain and Jacques Guerlain opened the doors of his laboratory to Olivier Cresp and Sylvaine Delacourte to compose together a highly original fragrance, Champs-Elysées. Champs-Elysées thus marked a pivotal turning point for Guerlain fragrances. This musky floral would upend the house codes while paying a fine olfactory tribute to its entire past.
As for the two talents chosen to compose the very first floral fragrance of the house of Guerlain, though young perfumers, they were no less passionate about floral raw materials and novel scents. Olivier Cresp did not hesitate to speak of his unconditional love for the flowers that shaped his childhood in Grasse: fields of flowers around Grasse. Wonderful scents of lavender, rose de mai, violet, mimosa.
For Sylvaine Delacourte, Champs-Elysées and its floral essences would mark the beginning of a wonderful journey alongside the house of Guerlain. Indeed, the great lady of the house would go on to take part in most of the great Guerlain successes that followed.
Guerlain’s very first mimosa fragrance: Champs-Elysées
To break away from its habits and establish a presence in an olfactory niche where the brand was not yet well represented, Guerlain wanted to launch a floral fragrance. So we worked on the Champs Elysées fragrance, built around a note little explored in perfumery at the time: mimosa. Sylvaine Delacourte.
Champs-Elysées thus explores the honeyed notes of mimosa to create bright, joyful spring scents. Luminous and almost sun-kissed, the mimosa is worked here to highlight its powdery facets alongside pretty roses and delicate lily of the valley, but also its crisp, green facets through fruity notes. Among the floral scents of Champs-Elysées, buddleia notes stand out, rather rare in perfumery; they offer a roundness similar to lilac but also honeyed facets that blend wonderfully with mimosa.
Finally, among the seductive olfactory novelties of this Champs-Elysées, as radiant as a spring sun, one notices in its depths a Guerlinade less pronounced than usual.