Extraordinary Figure

The Day Poiret met the Napoleon of Perfume

In his book En habillant l’époque [Dressing the Era] the perfumer and stylist Paul Poiret remembered the first time he met Coty.

“When a small man in a light grey suit and straw hat arrived one morning, I didn’t know who it was. It turned out to be Monsieur Coty.

He settled into an armchair and made the following declaration :

I’ve come to buy your perfume business.

It’s not for sale, I told him.

If you carry on like this he replied, it will take you fifteen years to make anything of it. But if you come in with me, you’ll profit from my management and in two years you’ll be as rich as I am.

I understand that, but if I do go in with you, the business will belong to you in two years.

If I don’t go in with you, in fifteen years it will still belong to me.

You understand nothing about business he cried, and jumping to his feet he jammed his hat on his little head and stalked out.

We watched him go in silence.

At that moment Coty looked just like Napoleon.”

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A couple of years later, Coty was selling 30,000 powder compacts - a day, in the US alone.

That’s worth about one million dollars today.

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Taken from Les Parfums by Élisabeth de Feydeau (2011) Robert Laffont, Paris