Paul Poiret - Couturier & Perfumer |
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Paul Poiret (1879-1944) worked as a fashion designer apprentice in the workshop of Jacques Doucet in 1899. Doucet was a French fashion designer and art collector known for his elegant dresses. A few years later Poiret joined English designer Charles Frederick Worth who designed made-to-measure clothing for a wealthy clientele.
The House of Worth was a successful international fashion business and after Worth's death in 1895, the business was run by his sons. It was his grandson Jacques that entered the perfume industry in 1924, creating their first fragrance, Dans La Nuit, with Rene Lalique commissioned to design the bottle.
Poiret's early experience with these two successful fashion designers led to the beginning of Poiret's own haute couture career and he opened his fashion house in Paris in 1903.
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It's been said that Poiret loved life, parties, women and harmonious lines in his designs. He also disliked corsets and stopped including them in his fashions which led to a completely new style for women.
In 1905, Poiret married Denise Boulet and she soon became one of the "queens" of Poiret's new fashions and his clothing began to attract the elegant women of Paris who were also captivated by Poiret's new ideas.
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In 1910 Poiret began collaborating with the Ballets Russes in Paris and along with the craze for everything Asian and his colorful fabrics, Poiret was instrumental in establishing trends in ladies fashion including the aigrette-adorned turbans that were worn to Parisian parties. An aigrette is a hair ornament that was designed to hold feathers that were often encrusted with jewels. |
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Portion of the custom mural created by Sarah Anderson for the Poiret display. A perfect example of the aigrette-adorned turban.
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In 1911 Poiret's fashion house expanded to include perfumes and interior design. Poiret's fashion house became one of the most well known of its time, especially after he launched Parfums de Rosine and Ateliers de Martine, named after his daughters Rosine and Martine. He soon became known as Le Magnifique.
Les Ateliers de Martine trained girls from less fortunate families in the decorative arts. Their training included sketching, weaving and decorating ceramics and glass. The girls were introduced to modern art and artists, and also helped create some of the bottles and packaging for Parfums de Rosine. Today many of the objects created by the "Martines" are extremely collectible. Additional artists including Erté, Raul Duffy and Paul Iribe worked for Poiret in designing the bottles and packaging.
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Rosine bottles decorated by the Martines on the left. Also hand painted by the Martines are three early atomizers. |
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Ateliers Martine worked on a variety of decorating projects including Helena Rubinstein's beauty salon in Paris, cruise ships and stage and set designs for plays and films.
Poiret also established his own packaging workshop, called Ateliers Colin, named after his third child. Cosmetic packaging became a complementary aspect of his decorating and perfume companies.
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Chez Poiret by Rosine, launched in 1912 |
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Parfums de Rosine was a success from the start and it has been said that Francois Coty even tried to buy the company! Poiret employed well-known perfumers Emmanuel Bouler, Maurice Schaller and Henri Almeras.
Schaller created all of the perfumes for Parfums de Rosine from 1911 to 1914 until he was drafted in the war. Almeras took his place from 1915 to 1926. Schaller went on to create Carnet de Bal for Revillon in 1937 and Almeras joined Jean Patou and created Joy in 1930 and other fragrances for Patou.
Poiret is considered the first fashion designer to introduce his own perfumes. However, unlike Coco Chanel whose Chanel No. 5 first appeared in 1921, ten years after Poiret had begun selling his "designer perfume," Poiret never included his name on his perfumes or on the company. From the start, he believed that perfume presentations involved five features: name, bottle, label, box and additional ornamentation.
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In 1912 he went on a European tour, traveling throughout Germany, Russia, Austria and Poland where he presented his creations while forming relationships with artists and designers. He employed models to wear his clothing to represent his fashion house.
Poiret first traveled to the US to introduce and promote his Parisian style fashions and perfumes in 1913, returning in 1922, 1927 and 1928. Each US tour included visits to east coast and midwest department stores, in addition to being the guest speaker at a variety of events. Newspapers covered his travels and presentations and several of his comments were controversial at the time, but showed his personality and devotion to fashion!
Prior to his return to France on the Lusitania in 1913, he was asked by a reporter about some of the critical comments he made about fashion in the US and he replied "I may have said some disagreeable things, but I said them politely!"
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This Borgia perfume bottle and box were created in 1914, Poiret's last creation before the outbreak of WWI. |
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Poiret's business expanded greatly until the start of WWI. In 1914 he closed his fashion business and joined the army again, having served briefly in 1900. His business remained closed until after the war. From 1921 to 1925, Poiret opened shops throughout France but his approach to fashion was going out of favor with women and after 1925, his business began to decline.
During this time he continued to host elaborate parties with other artists and designers and began working with contemporaries including Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli who both credit Poiret's influence in developing their own fashion lines and perfumes. The parties were known as the "art of living Poiret-style," and helped him to promote and sell his fashions and perfumes.
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Poiret was considered a public relations man, ahead of his time and he preferred a more original approach for the advertisements for his perfumes and fashions. In addition, his artist and writer friends helped him create accessory items for his perfumes and fashions that included fans, perfume cards, samples and vaporizers. |
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Poiret participated in the 1925 Paris Exposition internationale des Arts Décoratifs, decorating three barges on the banks of the Seine river. One of the barges exhibited his collections, one was a restaurant and the third barge displayed his decorative objects and perfumes. A perfume organ was even set up to distill Rosine fragrances on one of the barges!
His involvement in the Expo was not considered a success and it left Poiret with financial difficulties. His wife divorced him in 1928, he was no longer in control of his business, and the company eventually declared bankruptcy.
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It is interesting to note that throughout the 1920s his fragrances were imported to the US and sold at drugstores including the many Walgreens that were located throughout the Chicago area. |
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This Rosine powder box was offered for sale in several ads in midwest newspapers, including Chicago's The Fair department store in 1929, selling for 39 cents. |
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An interesting 1929 ad from a Massachusetts newspaper with Paul Poiret promoting smoking and cigarettes. Poiret says that "I may add that I smoke Lucky Strikes myself, and I think they have contributed much to the state of mind which has helped me to create my greatest successes. Lucky Strikes are certainly an inspiration!" |
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After that he attempted to return to haute couture designs, but his focus was mostly on writing, painting and the theater. He died impoverished and practically forgotten in 1944.
Over the years Poiret's Rosine company created more than 40 different fragrances with evocative, exotic names like Arlequinade, Le Balcon, Borgia, Aladin, Nuit de Chine, Toute la Foret, Sa Chambre, Avenue du Bois, Fruit Defendu, Coupe d’Or and Maharadjah to name a few.
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Various presentations of Rosine perfumes: Toute La Forget, Aladdin and Le Mouchoir. |
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According to purse aficionados Mike and Sherry Miller, the Massachusetts Whiting & Davis purse company employed the services of Paul Poiret as he continued to stay on top of fashion demands in the 1920s.
Poiret's association with Whiting & Davis ushered in a new era of mesh handbags with a distinctive shape. The new pouch shaped bags were made in flat mesh, Beadlite, and ring mesh and featured deco frames and colorful deco designs on the mesh.
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The exact date “Poiret Bags” were announced to wholesalers is a matter of record. In a dramatic full-page ad in the June 6, 1929 issue of The Jeweler’s Circular, the headline read, “Mr. C.A. Whiting cabled from Paris: Announce the new Paul Poiret pouch-shaped costume bags June 1st.”
Mike said that there is some evidence that Poiret did, in fact, make certain tangible physical design contributions that found their way to the finished product. However, he said that there is also ample evidence that other designs attributed to Poiret were a product of the W&D design department’s adaptation of Poiret’s “sketches, interpretations and designs.” And it seems clear in some instances Poiret’s involvement was negligible. As one ad aimed at retailers states, “The magic of the Poiret name is at your service --- to speed your sales.”
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A 1929 advertisement for a Whiting & Davis mesh purse designed by Poiret claimed that "they have that indefinable quality of Parisian allure which this celebrated savant of feminine fashion has always imparted to his creations |
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Perfumes have always been a highly lucrative and profitable business and for some creators it allowed them to finance the more expensive world of couture. In the 1920s the financial crisis had begun to affect major fashion houses as the costs to present their collections to the public were skyrocketing. So it made sense for designers, whose activity is similar to perfumery, to begin fragrance production.
This expansion from haute couture to perfumery was usually carried out in two stages. Designers started out by getting involved with the packaging of their perfumes and then when the perfumes began to succeed, the designer would then turn manufacturer.
The manufacturing formulas were then purchased by the designer from the suppliers and production and research would then become the concern of the fashion house.
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The second stage would include the designer hiring a perfumer-creator such as when
- Almeras joined Patou
- Ernest Beaux joined Chanel
- Maurice Blanchet joined Worth
- Andre Fraysse joined Lanvin
- Hubert Fraysse joined Weil
- Maurice Schaller joined Poiret
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Thus began the successful journey of the past century when perfumes increased a fashion house's prestige.
Poiret's reputation for both a designer and perfumer was instrumental in the growth of both industries as he considered perfume an essential fashion accessory of feminine beauty. This collaboration continues to exist today as designers know that perfumes add an olfactory dimension to their apparel.
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The May 10, 1931 Chicago Tribune had an article about Poiret broadcasting to US audiences from the Eiffel Tower about "fashion predictions."
Below are additional notices of Paul Poiret and his speaking engagements.
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Treasures of the Collection... |
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In 1927 Paul Poiret paid homage to Charles Lindbergh as he dressed up a bottle in paper, reproducing an airplane's shape by the folds in the perfume's label. It came in a matching box. Lindbergh, nicknamed "the lone eagle," became the first pilot to fly solo from New York to Paris in 1927 in 33 hours.
Lindbergh landed near Paris on May 21, 1927 and two days later Poiret registered the name of Lindbergh's plane for use on his perfume bottle. The presentation and box was originally created for Rosine's "La Rose de Rosine" in 1912 and the design was reused for the "Spirit of Saint Louis" bottle and was sold as a limited edition of around 1000 bottles.
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Photograph of a mobile window display from the Poiret boutique.
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Our mission is to preserve the history, beauty and artistry of perfume bottles, compacts, ephemera and related vanity items. Through education, outreach, and awareness of the Perfume Passage collection and library, our goal is to inspire art lovers, collectors, archivists and curators to keep this history alive. |
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Types of tours include:
- Private docent-guided tours
- Group tours
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Symphony of Scents and Sounds
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In accordance with local updated guidelines, Perfume Passage no longer requires proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or masks for museum visitors. However, we strongly encourage all of our guests to wear masks while in the building. |
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