The Luxury Fragrance Edit
Heritage names to look out for in The Fragrance Lounge
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The Luxury Fragrance Edit
Heritage names to look out for in The Fragrance Lounge
Spreading across the ground floor of Liberty’s Tudor flagship is the Liberty Beauty Hall, the world class destination for makeup, skincare and hair. But beneath it on Lower Ground lies the jewel in Liberty’s beauty crown - The Fragrance Lounge. It’s here that you’ll find some of the finest perfumes, from legacy names to niche brands, alongside the Fragrance Concierge, where you can book an appointment to find your signature scent, a wedding perfume, or try out a fragrance experience.
The Fragrance Lounge currently houses 16 different brands, each with their own dedicated counter. Here, we explore four of the most storied names from this season’s curation.
Guerlain L'Art & la Matière Collection
Available exclusively in The Fragrance Lounge, Guerlain's collection of fine fragrance is best experienced in person. Comprising 23 scents, the name translates to ‘art and ingredients’, the two inspirations for this collection. Each fragrance is made from minimum of 95% natural ingredients, and is designed to translate to a work of art. Rose Barbare, for example, is reminiscent of the opera ‘Carmen’ by Georges Bizet.
The collection was created by master perfumer Thierry Wasser, the godson of Guerlain heir Jean-Paul Guerlain, alongside perfumer Delphine Jelk. Taking the focus on ingredients a step further, they also created the ‘Guerlainaides’, 6 highly-concentrated extraits focused on key ingredients like vanilla, rose centifolia and iris, in which 80% of the concentration is dedicated to each single ingredient. These extraits are designed to be layered, and each contains 30% perfume concentration, compared to 24% in an eau de parfum.
Complimentary personalisation is available for each bottle (both Guerlainaides and the wider L'Art & la Matière collection), allowing you to choose a bespoke lid and cord.
Infiniment Coty Paris
Like Guerlain, Coty - as it was originally called - is one of France’s pioneering fragrance houses. Founded in 1904 by François Coty, he grabbed the industry’s attention with his first perfume, La Rose Jacqueminot. His method was typically disruptive - he ‘accidentally’ dropped a bottle of it on the floor of Parisian department store Les Grands Magasins during a sales appointment. The smashed perfume released a scent so intoxicating that customers crowded around it, enquiring where they could buy it. Needless to say, the sales appointment was a success.
Since then, Coty has evolved into one of the world’s most prestigious parent brands, producing fragrance and skincare collections for designers like Gucci, Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein. However, these shiny names somewhat eclipsed Coty’s own brand, and so in 2023, Coty CEO Sue Nabi and her creative partner Nicolas Vu teamed up to put Coty’s own fragrances back on the map.
Together they created Infiniment Coty Paris, 14 unisex fragrances in beautiful art deco-inspired bottles. Inspired by Coty’s scientific roots, each fragrance is constructed using a technology called ‘molecular aura’. This means that instead of drying down in a pyramid like a regular fragrance, revealing mid and base notes over time, Infiniment Coty Paris’ fragrances are built on a sphere. As a result, they continue smelling the same throughout the day, even as they eventually wear off.
Gucci Alchemist’s Garden
In 2019, Gucci launched the haute parfumerie range Alchemist’s Garden. Whilst we know and love the house’s famous ‘Guilty’ perfume, Alchemist’s Garden was designed with the fragrance connoisseur in mind, someone who wants to create their own unique scent. The collection comprises seven fragrances, three scented waters, and four perfume oils, encouraging the wearer to mix and match the different layers to find their signature.
Each bottle also bears its own symbol including a lion, snake, dragonfly and a chalice, adding a layer of storytelling and mysticism to each. The packaging is designed to look like something you’d buy from a traditional Italian apothecary, a reference to the heritage of this 103-year-old house. The idea is that the wearer becomes the alchemist, concocting their own unique scent combination from this magical garden of scents and ideas.
Creed
The word ‘iconic’ gets thrown around a lot, but Creed earns the descriptor. The house is over 260 years old, and still a force in the modern fragrance world. But it wasn’t always the Aventus-drenched juggernaut we know today. In fact, Creed actually started as a tailoring business.
The Creed history begins in 1760 with James Henry Creed, who took his father’s tailoring business to Paris, cementing the brand’s legacy of British design and French expertise. He made a pair of scented leather gloves for King George III, which started the brand’s association with both royalty and fragrance. Two generations later, Queen Victoria (King George III’s granddaughter) chose Creed as an official supplier for the Royal Household, and in 1854, Creed opened another headquarters in Paris, sponsored by Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie (a notoriously fashionable woman).
As evidenced by its history, Creed has always been entwined with power and luxury, two qualities which define their most famous fragrance, Aventus. Released in 2010, the fragrance was inspired by Napoleon Bonaparte, father of the aforementioned Napoleon III.
Liberty LBTY. Fragrance
Think of a designer you love, and chances are they’ve designed a Liberty print. With one of the world’s largest and most impressive print archives, Liberty prints are synonymous with history, creativity and the spirit of the arts and crafts movement.
Launched in 2023, the Liberty LBTY. Fragrance collection comprises eight fragrances, each of which is inspired by a different archival print. Taking the design as their starting point, a team of world renowned perfumers translated the history and design language of each print into a corresponding fragrance.
From the curling art deco lines of the Ianthe print (Ianthe Oud), blossoming Liberty Maze, or Walter Crane’s ‘Eden’s Awakening’ (Zephirine), each Liberty LBTY. fragrance evokes an imaginary garden filled with plants, flowers and birds.
Visit the Fragrance Lounge on Lower Ground to explore more niche and curated perfumes, and book a discovery session at the Fragrance Concierge.
