Almost a hundred and seventy years have passed since the year 1828 when Pierre François Guerlain, chemist doctor, opened his perfumery shop at 42, rue de Rivoli, Paris.
The shop is stocked with fashionable products imported from England and he also sells his own creations such as perfumed extracts for the handkerchief or the cosmetics, vinegars, soaps and elixirs used at the time.
His keen business sense ensures his success. For example, he invents an 'Eau de Cologne' and calls it Eau de Cologne Impériale even though France has not been an Empire for the last ten years! But Europe in the first half of the 19th century is teeming with crowned heads who will ultimately assure its success.
From Pierre François Pascal to Jean Paul, from the rue de Rivoli to the Champs ¬Élysées, passing through the rue de la Paix, five generations of the Guerlain family will enrich the perfumed heritage of the company with an exceptional number of fragrances and bottles...
Michèle and Alain Monniot, driven by their passion and uncontested knowledge of the Guerlain history, have searched the archives of the Guerlain company and of their glass makers, Baccarat, Pochet & du Courval and Saint-Gobain for several years. The adventure of the most prestigious of the French perfume houses has been recounted with superb pictures and hitherto unpublished anecdotes. More than seven hundred photographs of bottles, boxes, perfumery articles, original watercolours, advertisements and diverse pictures illustrate this book.