Germaine Cellier

In a perfume world dominated by men, she imposed her signature, raw and daring, refusing to smooth out her creations to make them more docile.
Born in 1909 in Bordeaux to a bohemian father and her herbalist grandmother, she was imbued from an early age with the power of scents and the mystery of essences.
In Paris, she studied chemistry and joined the Roure Bertrand house, where she honed her craft. But it was in the 1940s that her talent really shone through, when she crossed paths with Robert Piguet. Far from the wise and powdery bouquets, she dared a daring move: *Bandit *(1944), a fragrance of leather and revolt, inspired by Amazons and pirate women. Wild, almost animalic, it made a lasting impression.
She did it again in 1945 with Vent Vert for Balmain, an explosion of galbanum that turned perfumery on its head and inaugurated the family of "green" fragrances. Two years later, Élysées 64-83 affirmed her taste for leathery chypres, and in 1948, she created Fracas, an opulent and unsettling tuberose that still bewitches film and fashion icons today.
A creator by instinct, Germaine Cellier creates her fragrances like others paint canvases, with a free hand and a rebellious spirit. In her Neuilly laboratory, she chiselled out other masterpieces: Jolie Madame for Balmain in 1953, leathery and violet, Monsieur Balmain in 1964, a lemony freshness that was the precursor of modern eaux de toilette.
Surrounded by artists and actors, a great smoker and a woman of character, she lived her art with passion until her last breath in 1976. Today, her fragrances still resonate as manifestos of independence and modernity.