First Eau de Toilette

First is the first fragrance by Van Cleef & Arpels. Jean-Claude Ellena composed it in 1976, and the house counts it among the very first jeweler’s fragrances: a way of adorning the silhouette with the finest materials nature has to offer.

Jean-Claude Ellena at 28

Ellena, then a perfumer at Givaudan, was 28. He later told Le Figaro, in 2012, that he had used everything that could express luxury, and sees in First the last of the classics, akin to Chanel’s No. 5 and Lanvin’s Arpège in its complexity and opulence.

A jeweler’s bouquet

The house describes a luminous fragrance, a generous floral bouquet crowned with aldehydes. Le Figaro sees First as opening the way for other Place Vendôme jewelers, such as Cartier or Boucheron, who would in turn launch their own fragrances.