Grey Flannel

Geoffrey Beene launched Grey Flannel in 1975, Wikipedia reports, among the licenses he was then signing for eyewear and bed linen. The fragrance won a FiFi Award in 1976, the year From Pyrgos considers its true arrival on department store shelves.

The designer’s flannel

The name comes from grey flannel, the designer’s signature material, which he used for his dresses as well as his menswear, Victoria Frolova and Christopher Stocks recall. The fragrance itself smells not of flannel but of violet, Stocks notes.

André Fromentin and the violet leaf

Christopher Stocks credits the composition to André Fromentin, an otherwise little-known perfumer, who paired the scent of violet leaf, reproduced synthetically in the early 20th century, with fresh materials such as galbanum and bergamot.

For Victoria Frolova, Grey Flannel derives from no model and has no copies; she sees in it the inspiration for Dior’s Fahrenheit, itself a major trendsetter, and a fragrance that has remained singular.

A history of licenses

From Pyrgos traces the successive hands of the license: Epocha, Beene’s in-house structure according to a former Sanofi Beauté executive, Jacqueline Cochran, Sanofi, French Fragrances, which became EA Fragrances, under Elizabeth Arden.