Emilie by Fragonard

Fragonard can be found in Bilbao at Kosguk.

LA MAISON FRAGONARD is largely unknown to the general public and even to perfume enthusiasts in particular. To give an example: famous online perfume retailers in Spain do not stock any item from the FRAGONARD house. Neither Notino, nor Paco Perfumerías, nor Perfumes’Club, nor Primor, nor El Corte Inglés, nor Druni, nor Douglas, nor Nadia, nor Le Secret du Marais. Nobody sells Fragonard perfumes in Spain. On Amazon Spain, they are sold at rather expensive prices. The only place I have seen FRAGONARD perfumes at unbeatable prices is my indispensable Vinted (a buy-and-sell page for perfumes from five European countries), which, despite occasional hiccups, remains for me an inexhaustible source of treasures and very affordable discoveries. The Maison FRAGONARD is one of those houses that commands my respect, as it remains a family-based company rooted in GRASSE (France) and is currently run by Françoise and Agnès Costa, great-granddaughters of the founder of FRAGONARD, Eugène Fuchs. EUGÈNE FUCHS, a notary originally from Alsace, France, travelled to the city of GRASSE to alleviate his bronchial asthma, thanks to the benign climate of the Alpes Maritimes and the quality of its waters. Enamoured with this city and its perfumery tradition, he abandoned his profession and purchased an old perfumery there in 1926, in one of the city’s oldest factories, originally built by perfumer Claude Mottet in 1841. He named the factory-perfumery FRAGONARD, in honour of JEAN-HONORÉ FRAGONARD (1732-1806), son of a perfumer glovemaker from Grasse and a Rococo painter of the Ancien Régime under Louis XVI. Born in Grasse, with a hedonistic and sensual aesthetic of clear Rubensian influence. EMILIE is a decidedly floral and delicate perfume, yet delicate with a somewhat sensual surprise. What stands out from the beginning is the violet flower, with that clean, soapy, virginal quality. This effect is enhanced by bergamot and white musk, which blend their citrus and refreshing effluvia with the violet flowers. Because EMILIE is a perfume highly suitable as a first fragrance for a teenager who does not wish to continue smelling of sweets, confectionery, or gummies and aims to use a perfume that distinguishes her from the rest of her class at the Institute. Hidden behind the violet, the more sensual aromas of a rose, a jasmine, and a lily of the valley are perceived, nothing animalic, but adding those doses of contained sensuality within the hormonal fragrances of an adolescence striving to break through the virginity of the violets and social restrictions. An evocative sweet woody base of sandalwood and amber lends it complexity and a texture halfway between lost innocence and newly discovered lust. As it dries down, a surprising indolic jasmine emerges, anticipating the nights of adolescent passion that are yet to come. EMILIE is a classy, exquisite, complex fragrance with appreciable longevity, worth knowing.