In a small town in the South of France, where luscious ocher, yellow and pink buildings abut verdant fields alive with flowers, the past, present and future merge to create the invisible art of fragrance.
Dubbed the perfume capital of the world and the birthplace of modern perfumery, Grasse is rooted in history with five centuries of fragrance-making. But its essence has also sparked the renaissance in the perfume category, as creativity collides with chemistry and traditional codes of the métier are reinforced and updated for new generations.
“We developed this very specific language and a culture of perfume that doesn’t exist in other places in the world,” said Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud, Louis Vuitton’s master perfumer, describing Grasse, his birthplace and that of his forebears for generations. “Even the birds smell here.”
“We say that in Grasse, everyone is a perfumer,” said Aurélien Guichard, who is one himself and a seventh-generation Grassois.
A confluence of factors is fueling Grasse’s present ascendance, which has been building for a decade but accelerating more recently. This includes the renewal of natural fragrances’ popularity, the desire of brands and consumers for sustainable, traceable perfume production, the rise of quiet luxury and an increased appreciation for deep-rooted heritage.
Fragonard, Galimard and Molinard are among the historical perfume brands, and Mane and Robertet the historical fragrance-makers from this town, all with a strong presence there still today. Meanwhile, leading fragrance suppliers, such as IFF, Givaudan, Dsm-firmenich and Symrise, and brands like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior and Lancôme, are returning and consolidating their presence in Grasse and its region.
Their renewed interest makes perfect sense.
Grasse’s fragrance-making expertise dates to the 15th and 16th centuries, when the practice of scenting tanned animal hides was developed. In 1616, King Louis XIII recognized the guild of glover-perfumers, and the fragrance industry was born.
In 1850, factories were built in Grasse and its surrounding fields sewn with flowers to meet the burgeoning demand. The village of Tourrettes, for instance, became known for its violets and Vallauris for its orange flower. Higher up in the Alps, lavender and oak moss grew. The richness of species is thanks to Grasse and the region’s geographic location, 12 miles from the sea and near to mountains, creating an ideal climate for growing olfactive raw ingredients.
The town and its surroundings blossomed with plant growers, flower brokers and fragrance manufacturers. Between 1850 and 1875, the number of related companies grew from 45 to 65, according to Grasse Expertise.
Grasse was the undisputed center of global perfumery through the 1940s. But by the next decade, the international race was on for synthetic products and lower-priced natural ingredients from elsewhere in the world. At the time, there were about 5,000 producers of perfume plants in the region of Grasse, but the métier had become difficult with required quotas and late payments.
Little by little, during the 1960s and 1970s, flower fields began vanishing, with some of the land snapped up for vacation homes and flowers being procured in different parts of the world, like Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt.
Many fragrance-makers left in the late 1990s. Factories in and around the town began diversifying into food processing, health and beauty, causing a precipitous drop in yearly flower-crop volume output from a high of 5,000 tons in the 1940s. Today it is around 40 tons, Grasse Expertise figures show.
But that number is increasing, as numerous olfactive flower and plant farmers are supported by fragrance suppliers and some brands through partnerships, plus the backing of the local government.
“It’s a kind of blooming,” said Dsm-firmenich master perfumer Olivier Cresp of Grasse’s development.
Land of Plenty
Amandine Rebuffel wades through a field lined with rose centifolia bushes in Fayence, 16 miles outside of Grasse. It is one day after the harvest has ended — with all flowers picked by hand, as is tradition — leaving only a few pale pink petals peeping shyly from behind leaves. Rebuffel gathers some, while nearby tiny white snails sit atop stalks of grass and other plants, like buds of another species starting to bloom as far as the eye could see.
On this land stands a stone chapel dating from 1713 and her family’s domain, constructed of similar stone. Rebuffel works the land with her brother, Bastien. “When we were small, we were always among the roses,” she said. “They were something we were passionate about and loved.”
Their grandmother sewed small bags for their mini harvests. Those grew in tandem with the grandchildren’s size. (Today, Bastien Rebuffel’s children have tiny sacks of their own.) “The next generation is assured,” said Amandine Rebuffel.
She and her brother are the fourth generation of Rebuffels in the fragrance plant métier and the sixth generation of family members growing vine. “My family has farmed for approximately 160 years,” said Amandine Rebuffel. “We really want to continue and perpetuate this domain and its tradition.”
There are only about 20 producers of rose centifolia in the Grasse region now. The Rebuffels supply their roses to Dsm-firmenich, which has a factory 10 minutes away, allowing for fresh deliveries.
Regional flower-growers are like living legends here. Five generations of the Mul family have been supplying jasmine and rose to Chanel in the Grasse region, and are now the brand’s largest flower producer. Their official partnership began in 1987, with the then in-house perfumer Jacques Polge. The idea was to secure a supply of the flowers — with the required quality — for the making of Chanel No.5.
“We proposed a partnership,” said Fabrice Bianchi, operations manager at Domaine le Petit Campedieu. Today the Mul family supplies rose and jasmine flowers, among other kinds, from its 30 hectares. (Everything is grown organically and last year was Regenerative Organic Certified.)
“For us this partnership allows for perpetuity,” said Bianchi, underlining it opens the field for long-term vision and thinking regarding replanting or new crops and cultures. “The links are very close and direct with the perfumer.”
Chanel’s perfumer wished for tuberose, for a quality extract with traceability. “Everything is done on-site,” said Bianchi. “That is very important to the success of a project.”
As Chanel’s current perfumer-creator Olivier Polge, the son of Jacques Polge, wanted more roses, another 2.5 hectares were added to reach 8.5 hectares with about 75,000 rose bushes in all. These will be ready in about two years. The jasmine field has been doubled in size, too, to 4.5 hectares.
Chanel was pioneering in forging a partnership in Grasse. “We were the first ones to realize how the farming stage is the most important,” said Polge, who was born in Grasse by chance, when his parents were on summer holiday there.
Chanel began using flowers from the region in the 1920s, after Gabrielle Chanel met the perfumer Ernest Beaux and asked him to use the most beautiful raw materials.
Chanel ultimately built a factory, which is currently being extended, next door to the Mul’s land for flower extraction. “The idea is to craft our quality of raw materials by ourselves,” said Polge. “And to try and have very specific olfactive properties for the raw materials we use in our formulas.”
Another family has been close to Dior for generations. When Rémi Giovinazzo’s father purchased land, now known as Les Roses des Champs, near Grasse around 1990, he was already supplying roses to Christian Dior’s sister, Catherine Dior, through an intermediary. But when his new property was right next to hers, they became acquainted. Giovinazzo — 18 at the time of the first meeting — described Dior as “an exceptional character. I remember it like yesterday,” he said.
“Catherine was someone with a lot of charisma, an enormous amount of power,” Giovinazzo continued, adding she simultaneously was kind and commanded respect. He recalled she often wore boots and was a hard worker.
Giovinazzo believes his father and Catherine Dior were similar souls. “Each of them suffered and through nature found life’s beauty again. This simplicity that is in nature — that there is nowhere else — they succeeded in cultivating through roses,” he said.
Giovinazzo and his father helped plant 1,000 rose bushes for Catherine Dior, who then ordered 300 more each successive year. She also asked for recommendations about olive trees.
Giovinazzo thinks it’s destiny that he’s now supplying flowers to Dior. “We work a bit for her again,” he said, adding that’s also true for Francis Kurkdjian, perfume creation director at Dior. Giovinazzo recalled Kurkdjian sitting and having pasta at his home, following a last-minute invitation.
“It was the simplicity we lived with Catherine Dior,” said Giovinazzo, adding that both she and Kurkdjian remain rooted, despite their fame. “That’s the beauty of life. One can be everything at once.”
Born and Bred
A plethora of top perfumers today come from Grasse. “To be born in Grasse is an advantage, especially in May,” teased Cavallier-Belletrud, referring to when roses are harvested.
For him, Grasse is synonymous with beautiful raw materials and creation. “Here you have good vibes, because you’re alone, connecting with nature and smelling, having enough time — that is luxury,” he said.
It is true for Cavallier-Belletrud as an artist, as well as for all the painters and sculptors who journeyed to Grasse for its light and the lighter mood it conjures. Not to mention the scents of May rose, jasmine, tuberose, violet and iris that often waft through the streets from nearby fields or processing factories in central Grasse.
Fragrance-making runs in Cavallier-Belletrud’s blood. “My father was a perfumer. My mother was the assistant of Edmond Roudnitska. My grandfather was a perfumer, too,” he said.
Cavallier-Belletrud always knew fragrance-making was in his future. “For me it was not a job,” he said. “My father was an actor, a genius who was paid just to smell and have ideas in his brain.”
The perfumer described this from his office full of small vials and fanned-out paper testing strips at Les Fontaines Parfumées. It’s the site rehabilitated and reopened in 2016, after a half-century of being dormant, by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and now serves as the brand’s creative fragrance workshop.
The salmon-color building is surrounded by fragrant flowers and herbs from hundreds of plant varieties sown around the property that includes fountains, which once had fragranced waters, dating from 1640. Cavallier-Belletrud wandered through the garden and picked a massive citron and bergamot to smell. “I believe that the trees and plants are communicating together,” he said.
Cavallier-Belletrud was six or seven when he told his father he wanted to be a perfumer. As a teenager, sharing experiences with friends also with summer jobs in Grasse’s fragrance-making, he made a discovery. “What you feel is more important than what you smell,” said Cavallier-Belletrud. “To smell is one thing, a dog can do it. To feel and to create, only a human can do it.”
He recalled the feeling of seeing liquid jasmine being poured into a flacon. “The scent and the smell around this bottle was a dream come true,” said Cavallier-Belletrud.
“What is fantastic in Grasse is that you learn the pleasure of smelling raw material,” he continued. “Even if you think you know jasmine by heart, you still discover new facets in it. It’s learning this connection with nature that is so essential and develops the imagination incredibly. Because every day you love to see things that nobody has seen yet. And you want to capture it and to put it in a bottle.”
Over holiday lunches, the Cavallier-Belletrud family would talk politics — and perfumery. Cavallier-Belletrud recalled the cathedral by city hall had the scent of lavender, jasmine and incense. On Rue Tracastel, a street below it, they were producing star anise oil, incense and cistus.
He considers Grasse a paradise and a miracle. “In all my fragrances, I try to put the joie de vivre that you have here,” said Cavallier-Belletrud, noting his perfumes Rose des Vents and Les Sables Roses were directly inspired by the city.
In Grasse, he grew up with others who became perfumers, including Olivier Cresp, today master perfumer at Dsm-firmenich, whose family has lived there for more than three centuries.
His great-grandfather farmed roses and jasmine in Sainte Anne, near Grasse, over 25 hectares. Cresp’s grandfather started buying extracts of bergamot, lemon, orange and grapefruit from Italy, and his father also became a broker, working with Mane, Robertet, Chanel and Dior.
“He was dealing with Mr. Roudnitska, who created Sauvage,” said Cresp, who reminisced how as a child around the dining table his parents would invite perfumers from the world over. Cresp vividly recalled as a child smelling pure extracts of violet, orris, jasmine and tuberose his father brought home in small bottles, and traversing Grasse and its environs by bike. “Always I remember the smell of all the extractions of the factories in the lower part of Grasse,” he said. “I remember the smell of galbanum and oakmoss extraction. Together with my dad, we went to lots of fields — like of mimosa in January and February — to smell the blooming trees.”
For Guichard, founder and artistic director of Matière Première, Grasse “is part of who I am,” he said.
Guichard’s father’s family has been living in the town since 1700, either growing ingredients, creating perfumes or managing companies. His grandparents grew roses, jasmine and verbena there.
“Perfumery and fragrance was a way of life linked to nature, creation and industry,” said Guichard. “Everyone in Grasse, whether they are perfumers or not, know what the smell of mimosa is. They have a culture of fragrances just by growing up around that.”
He and his father were part of the committee lobbying for Grasse to gain UNESCO recognition. In late 2018, they succeeded and the skills related to perfume in the Pays de Grasse region were inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
After being a perfumer for 15 years, in 2014 as his grandparents were aging, Guichard came to a realization. “I had to make another farm to make sure this family know-how was not going to disappear,” said Guichard. This came at a time when his father was retiring as a perfumer, as well. So Guichard senior began running the organic farm his son acquired in Fayence that now grows olfactive plants, including 25,000 rose bushes.
The site also served as the inspiration for Guichard to create his own brand, Matière Première. “Matière Première is what is the most beautiful thing about Grasse — this idea that from nature, you get amazing ingredients and fragrances doesn’t have to be a complicated thing,” he said.
For him, the specificity of an ingredient gives its value. “You preserve a heritage, have a local know-how, local practice, there’s a certain terroir for a certain quality of ingredients that is what is the most beautiful thing about perfumery, and especially modern perfumery,” said Guichard.
Return to the Source
While many fragrance suppliers that had exited Grasse and its region decades ago are returning, a few that specialize in naturals never left. Mane is one.
Earlier this year, the company named its first female chief executive officer, Samantha Mane, who succeeded her father at the independent, family-run company. It is the biggest fragrance and flavors supplier in France and the fifth largest in the world.
She is among the five members of the fifth generation of the family Mane, which founded the company in 1871. “We’re very fortunate to have been born in a region that is rich in terms of expertise and heritage,” she said.
Mane’s great-great grandfather cultivated plants sold to brokers. “He decided to capture two levels of added value and transform the plants himself,” she said. He began with bitter orange trees, then began a small distillery unit.
Mane, who was born and grew up in Grasse, said she is happy the region has been recognized for its savoir-faire and expertise, and that it is drawing more attention and people back now. Her priority as CEO is to maintain the group’s sustainable growth and independence. “It’s recognizing where we come from and how we have been able to grow,” she said, explaining the company will grow its historical activities, but particularly accelerate in ingredients and fine fragrances.
Robertet Group is another supplier that never left Grasse since its inception in 1850. The fifth generation of founding family members are operationally active today. Julien Maubert, head of the raw materials division and sustainability at the group, likened his joining the company to an episode in the French cartoon “Astérix & Obélix,” when Obélix falls into a potion.
“It’s a little bit the same thing for myself,” said Maubert. “Since I can remember, I’ve heard about fragrances, raw materials — that was part of my daily life. I was always very curious and impatient to work in the company.”
He underlined that alongside the UNESCO recognition, Grasse is entering the limelight more thanks to its geographical indication for 30 vegetal ingredients, including May rose, jasmine, iris and tuberose. The label indicates a specific geographic origin and that a product possesses a reputation or certain qualities due to that place.
“We are proud to see that our peers are coming back and investing, and also brands,” said Maubert. “Because that contributes, at the end of the day, to better recognition. It highlights the uniqueness of the knowledge, heritage, terroir and climate that we have in Grasse.”
IFF arrived in Grasse through acquiring Laboratoire Monique Rémy (now called LMR), which produces pure and natural ingredients, in 2000. That was at a time when many fragrance suppliers had already exited the town since aroma chemicals were in vogue. In 2016, IFF purchased Fragrance Resources, including a factory rooted in the tradition of Grasse, located by LMR. There, each fragrance compounded is still done by hand.
Just above that facility, IFF established its Atelier du Parfumeur in 2019, referred to internally as “the Villa Medici of perfumery.” The atelier holds inspiration workshops for the perfumers and brands they work with, where ideas can be exchanged and scents developed. “The idea was to have a space where our perfumers can be nourished in a different manner [that’s] very artistically driven,” said Florence Dussuyer, director of the atelier, “in an inspiring environment and with a soul.”
This year, the atelier opened a home luxury studio specializing in candles. Ten minutes away are the LMR experimental fields, for smelling what its team is developing and agronomy research. That has birthed, for instance, a new flower called the rose Sophia Grojsman in honor of the perfumer. “Our motto is: From Grasse to the world,” said Bertrand de Préville, general manager of IFF LMR Naturals.
“The world is also coming to Grasse,” added Dussuyer.
Dsm-firmenich’s main center of expertise for naturals is in Grasse, where it employs cutting-edge technologies, such as CO2 extraction, called Supercritical Fluid Extraction, or SFE, and Firgood technology, using electromagnetic waves and the natural ingredient’s intrinsic water.
“We are the only ones to do continuous microwave extraction,” said Pierre Ruch, president of the company in Grasse. Dsm-firmenich’s head of research and development for naturals is based in Grasse, too, from which he pilots engineers and researchers worldwide. The supplier also has a factory in Tourrettes, which processes flowers grown by local producers, with whom Dsm-firmenich has partnerships.
Five years ago, the group acquired a bastide, called Villa Botanica, perched atop a hill that’s surrounded by gardens spangled with roses, tuberose and olive trees, just outside of Grasse. Dsm-firmenich perfumers go there to glean inspiration and work on natural ingredients. A few times a year a perfumers’ council meets at the villa. “Innovation is our mission for naturals,” said Ruch. “We always thought that Grasse is a fantastic place because you have an ecosystem.”
Grasse has become important for Symrise over the past few years, after it acquired the smaller suppliers SFA Romani and Neroli there in 2022. According to Ricardo Omori, senior vice president of global fine fragrance, the merged companies have as a focus the artisanal segment of fine fragrances, particularly midsize family companies globally in regions like the Middle East, Africa, France and Italy.
The Maison Lautier, founded in Grasse in 1795 and which Symrise acquired in the 2000s, produces luxury natural ingredients. Omori said Symrise is “bringing back to life a lot of the savoir-faire, the tradition of the Grasse natural ingredient production.”
Givaudan is no stranger to Grasse, either. It is where Roure, another supplier, was located and was then merged with Givaudan in 1991, to become Givaudan-Roure. That business was spun off by Roche, as Givaudan, in 2000.
In 2007, Givaudan acquired Quest International, which had its roots in Grasse thanks to Chiris, which was founded there in 1768 and ultimately, after changes of hands and mergers, became Quest in 1987. “So historically, we’ve been there for a long time,” said Xavier Renard, global head of fine fragrance at Givaudan, who learned perfumery in Grasse.
For about two decades Givaudan did not have a presence in Grasse, but entered again with the acquisition of Expressions Parfumées in 2018 and Albert Vieille in 2019. “We’re back,” said Renard. “We’re looking to invest. Why is it important for us? It is in the Givaudan DNA, culture and history.”
The company also wants to help reinforce the image of Grasse as the capital of perfume and is building a state-of-the-art naturals facility to open in late 2027. “It’s about shaping the future,” said Renard. “We take this very seriously. It’s a blessing to see that Grasse is alive and full of long-term projects focused on the future of perfumery.”
Planting Roots
Jérôme Viaud, Grasse’s mayor, has been central to the town’s development.
“He is really very connected in this city,” said Cavallier-Belletrud, adding that Viaud has a vision for Grasse and perfumery in its heart.
“The mayor of Grasse [has been] doing a lot to help attract companies to come back to the Grasse region,” said Mane.
He’s “the number-one defender of naturals in Grasse,” according to Ruch.
Sitting at a small café in the picturesque Place aux Aires square that’s decorated with hanging pink umbrellas and a stately fountain, Viaud shared his vision. “For 10 years I’ve been working to create a new strategy and a new dynamic in the old downtown,” said Viaud.
Part of his focus has been on keeping fragrance-related companies in Grasse and bringing back others. Importantly, he has also earmarked 70 hectares of land near the town, where it’s key to help farmers rent property. “I would like the cosmetics companies to come back to Grasse, too,” continued Viaud, whose goal is for Grasse to once again become the temple of naturality.
“It’s a huge opportunity and a huge satisfaction for me,” said Viaud, who had just returned from SIMPPAR, the ingredients congress in Paris where it was decided the edition of 2026 would take place in Grasse’s downtown.
Dior is among the brands back in the region of Grasse, mining its heritage there. Christian Dior, from 1951 to his passing in 1957, had a country house called Château de La Colle Noire, which is about 12 miles from town. The designer was keen on fragranced flowers, which were grown in his vast garden and fields around the house.
Kurkdjian has a new line of fragrances, Les Récoltes Majeures, that takes a cue from La Colle Noire’s garden, which once covered 52 hectares. (Today there are 5.) The collection includes lily of the valley, rose and jasmine perfumes in flacons topped with finely embroidered fabric flowers.
“We know that there was lily of the valley growing at La Colle Noire — we know exactly where, behind a statue, on the left side, so this is where we put them back,” said Kurkdjian. Rose and jasmine also grew in Dior’s garden.
The premise for the fragrance line was: “Mr. Dior is gardening, and he is picking jasmine, roses and lily of the valley,” said Kurkdjian. “It is to capture the moment when Christian Dior is bringing to his nose a fresh-cut flower.”
For each scent, Dior used a different extraction method. “For the jasmine, we are working on a new technology based on microdistillation-slash-microwaves-slash-microvapor-distillation,” said Kurkdjian, adding thanks to that it was possible to find new proportions within the structure of jasmine.
“Les Récoltes Majeures is one of the unique ways to highlight the products that are based and made in Grasse,” said the perfumer, who has has reshaped La Colle Noire’s garden, including the replanting of jasmine and lavender and the addition of different types of plants and flowers, to bring back biodiversity.
Dior himself was a gentleman farmer, and his ornamental garden has been preserved. “We also have a field of 1,000 centifolia roses,” said Aurélien Michel, who oversees La Colle Noire. Those have just been harvested and will be used in Dior fragrances.
“We are in Grasse because our founder was there,” said Kurkdjian. “For us, Grasse is not a concept. It’s my history, when I’m at Dior. This is very important, because I have a responsibility in Grasse and the way we cultivate the flowers, the way we make deals in Grasse with producers.”
Since joining the house, Kurkdjian has doubled the number of such partnerships to 12. “We are maintaining a very dedicated relationship not with companies, but with people,” he said.
Lancôme journeyed to the Grasse region and in 2022 inaugurated its organic rose domain, which is run using ecological horticulture methods and protects biodiversity. The 7-acre site, called the Domaine de la Rose, showcases the cultivation of organic perfume plants, including jasmine, iris, tuberose and rose centifolia; processing, and creation, and has been open to the public since 2023.
Last year, Lancôme launched its Absolue Les Parfums line, with 11 scents, marking the brand’s first premium fragrance collection inspired by the domain. Each features the rose centifolia grown there. In 2025, two more fragrances were added, and Ô de Lancôme introduced three fragrances with verbena and jasmine grown at the domain.
Another brand to recently establish roots in Grasse is Atelier Des Ors. “We are very much into craftsmanship, just like winemakers. The soil is important,” said its founder Jean-Philippe Clermont, who acquired a neoclassic villa there. “The people who are growing the ingredients are important. With slow perfumery, time is important.”
Fragonard, which turns 100 next year, has always been in Grasse, where it owns two perfume factories and five boutiques, selling a lifestyle, from fragrance to fashion.
In the town, Fragonard has a Provençal-themed museum and the Jean-Honoré Museum, with artworks from the collection of Hélène and Jean-François Costa, the parents of Agnès Costa Webster, who, with her two sisters, runs Fragonard today.
The company keeps developing, with a museum debuting in Arles, France, on July 3, focused on Provençal fashion and costumes. And a guest house, surrounded by fields of perfume flowers, is scheduled to open in Grasse in 2026. “It is important to preserve for future generations this profession which was in the process of being lost,” said Costa Webster, who is Fragonard’s CEO.
Change Is of the Essence
Like the phoenix, Grasse keeps rising. Urban-renewal projects are underway, especially in the town’s historic center, including the renovation of squares, facades and streets.
There’s also been an investment in higher education and training, with the development of Grasse Campus, which aims to link the need of local businesses, applied research and young people’s integration into professional life. The campus counts more than 800 students in specialized fields, including chemistry, perfumery, cosmetics, management and entrepreneurship. Well-known schools, such as ISIPCA and École Supérieure du Parfum et de la Cosmétique, offer training courses there.
Other focuses of Grasse’s renewal include revegetation and water management.
There’s also the Musée International de la Parfumerie, founded in 1989. “Our journey starts in ancient Egypt, then we move forward in time,” said Laure Decomble, scientific manager of the museums in Grasse. An important object there is Marie-Antoinette’s dressing case with some perfume bottles.
Each year the perfumery museum welcomes about 100,000 visitors, while its nearby Jardins du Musée International de la Parfumerie, that spans almost 3 hectares, draws another 30,000 people.
“To build modernity, you have to investigate the past,” said Cavallier-Belletrud.
