Parfums Gres Perfumes & Colognes

A Paris couture house famous for draping jersey like Greek sculpture, and a perfume that became a phenomenon in Asia.

Madame Grès

Germaine Émile Krebs wanted to be a sculptor and ended up doing it in fabric. Working as Madame Grès from the 1930s, she pleated and draped silk jersey directly on the body in a way that no one has quite matched — gowns that look carved rather than sewn. Balenciaga called her the only true couturière in Paris.

She worked until the 1980s and died in obscurity in 1993, her death not made public for a year.

Cabochard, 1959

The house fragrance takes its name from a French word meaning stubborn or pig-headed, which she chose deliberately. It is a leather chypre — green at the top, rose and tobacco in the heart, leather and moss beneath — and it is one of the great difficult perfumes of the century.

It found an enormous audience in Asia, where it became a status fragrance for decades, long outselling anything the couture house ever made.

Bitterness, in the best sense

Bitterness, in the best sense. This is not a pretty perfume and never was; it is elegant in the way an unsmiling portrait is elegant.

For perfumery of similar seriousness on our shelves, see Caron and Hermès.