Classique Eau de Toilette

Jean Paul Gaultier’s first fragrance came out in 1993. It first bore the designer’s name and only later took the name Classique, to set it apart from the house’s other fragrances, Robin recalls on Now Smell This. Jacques Cavallier composed it; Le Male, its masculine counterpart, arrived in 1995.

The designer was already a star: Robin recalls his costumes for Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour in 1990. She also relays what he told Women’s Wear Daily in March 1993: loose powder like his grandmother’s, the smell of a front-row theater seat, and nail polish remover.

A grandmother’s vanity table

The theater in question is the Châtelet, where he went at the age of twelve: the curtain rises, the hot lights warm the costumes, wigs and sets. Yet Gaultier insists he is not joking: he wanted a fragrance people would truly want to wear, with flowers and vanilla.

Elena Vosnaki, on Perfume Shrine, traces the inspiration to a beloved grandmother’s vanity table, its pots of face powder and its acetone nail polish remover. The house, now part of Puig, calls it the corset that sets women free, offered to them in 1993 to proclaim their beauty while keeping them in control.