Givenchy III

The number is an address

The name does not denote a rank but a place. Givenchy explains the number by 3 avenue George V, the address of the couture house in the Parisian luxury district, where the perfume was launched to mark the opening of the boutique.

The perfume was released in 1970. For Aurélien Caillault, who reviewed it in Auparfum, it closes the house's classic period, thirteen years after the quiet launches of L'Interdit and Le De in 1957.

Three signatures, one of them forgotten

Wikiparfum, Auparfum and CaFleureBon credit three authors: Jean-François Latty, Raymond Chaillan and Yolande Jerrold. Most retail directories keep only two, and it is Yolande Jerrold's name that disappears.

CaFleureBon places the work without indulgence: a commercial success, but not a revelation for the industry. The three authors made a perfume of its time, one that paid tribute to the classics that came before it rather than surpassing them.

CaFleureBon also recalls that the house had been the first to entrust a perfume to a celebrity's face, giving L'Interdit to Audrey Hepburn in 1957. Givenchy III arrives thirteen years later, at the end of that first sequence.

Two perfumes, one name

The 1970 formula is no longer made. The perfume entered the Parfums Mythiques collection in 2007, where Givenchy reissues its classics, and has since received a rectangular bottle shared by the whole line.

It remains on sale. The house offers it on its own website and major retailers still list it. Some directories nonetheless mark it as discontinued: it is the original formula that is discontinued, not the name.