Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Cosmetics Fragrance |
Genre | Cosmetics |
Founded | 1999 in London |
Founder | Clive Christian |
Headquarters | London, England |
Area served | United Kingdom United States Europe Russia Middle East |
Key people | Amy Nelson-Bennett (Chief Executive) |
Products | Fragrances |
Number of employees | 100+ [1] |
Website | www.clivechristian.com |
Clive Christian Perfume is a UK-based independent luxury perfume house which sells products through its online store, at Harrods, Selfridges, and Fortnum & Mason in the UK as well as globally throughout America, Europe, Russia and the Middle East.
The Clive Christian perfume house was established in 1999, [2] when Clive Christian purchased the Crown Perfumery Company. The Crown Perfumery had been founded in 1872 and was granted the use of the royal crown by Queen Victoria, [3] but had come upon hard times, with declining profits and a fall in the quality of its products.[ citation needed ]
The first release by the newly purchased company was the Original Collection, which featured the fragrance pairs '1872', 'X', and 'No.1'. The new millennium brought a re-launch for this collection, along with the release of a new family of perfumes. This was the Private Collection, which consisted of the introduction of the 'C' fragrance in 2010, the 'V' fragrance in 2012 and the 'L' in 2014. The release of the 'V' perfume coincided with Christian being awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2012 New Year Honours List. [4] Later that year, a special bottle was presented to the Queen for her Diamond Jubilee. [5] Clive Christian Perfume now employs several hundred people [1] and as of 2017, features more than 10 different perfumes on its site, including the newly launched Noble VIII pair. [6]
In 2015, a majority stake in the company was bought [7] for an undisclosed sum by a consortium that included the founders of Stagecoach and venture capitalist Jon Moulton: founder and manager of Better Capital. [8] Christian retained a stake in the company and also became creative director, [9] with former Molton Brown executive Amy Nelson-Bennett appointed chief executive. [10] In July 2019, the Clive Christian business and brand was acquired by Nichebox, a perfume holding company. [11]
Grasse is the only subprefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region on the French Riviera. In 2017, the commune had a population of 50,396.
Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Perfumes can be defined as substances that emit and diffuse a pleasant and fragrant odor. They consist of manmade mixtures of aromatic chemicals and essential oils. The 1939 Nobel Laureate for Chemistry, Leopold Ružička stated in 1945 that "right from the earliest days of scientific chemistry up to the present time, perfumes have substantially contributed to the development of organic chemistry as regards methods, systematic classification, and theory."
Patou, formerly known as Jean Patou or Jean Patou Paris, is a French fashion house.
Sir Brian Souter is a Scottish businessman. With his sister, Dame Ann Gloag, he founded the Stagecoach Group of bus and rail operators. He also founded the bus and coach operator Megabus, the train operating company South West Trains, his investments company Souter Holdings Ltd, and the Souter Charitable Trust.
Guerlain is a French perfume, cosmetics, and skincare house which is among the oldest in the world. Many traditional Guerlain fragrances are characterized by a common olfactory accord known as the "Guerlinade".
Coty Inc. is an American multinational beauty company founded in 1904 by François Coty. With its subsidiaries, it develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes fragrances, cosmetics, skin care, nail care, and both professional and retail hair care products. Coty owns around 40 brands as of 2024.
A perfumist is an expert on creating perfume compositions, sometimes referred to affectionately as a nose due to their fine sense of smell and skill in producing olfactory compositions. The perfumer is effectively an artist who is trained in depth on the concepts of fragrance aesthetics and who is capable of conveying abstract concepts and moods with compositions. At the most rudimentary level, a perfumer must have a keen knowledge of a large variety of fragrance ingredients and their smells, and be able to distinguish each one alone or in combination with others. They must also know how each reveals itself over time. The job of the perfumer is very similar to that of flavourists, who compose smells and flavourants for commercial food products.
The word perfume is used today to describe scented mixtures and is derived from the Latin word per fumus. The word perfumery refers to the art of making perfumes. Perfume was produced by ancient Greeks, and perfume was also refined by the Romans, the Persians and the Arabs. Although perfume and perfumery also existed in East Asia, much of its fragrances were incense based. The basic ingredients and methods of making perfumes are described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia.
Roja Dove is a British perfumer whose fragrances are sold at department stores worldwide. Born and raised in Sussex, South East England, his career in perfumery began in 1981 when he joined the French perfume house Guerlain, working there for 20 years before leaving to set up his own companies RDPR and then Roja Parfums.
Joy is a perfume created for Parisian couturier Jean Patou by perfumer Henri Alméras in 1929. It is considered to be one of the greatest fragrances created and is a landmark example of the floral genre in perfumery. It is no longer produced.
Francis Kurkdjian is a French perfumer and businessman of Armenian descent. He is best known for creating the men's fragrance Le Male for Jean Paul Gaultier in 1995, which has become one of the world's best-selling perfumes.
Clive Christian, is a British designer best known for his designer kitchens and his creation of Clive Christian No. 1, the world's most expensive perfume.
Clive Christian No. 1 is an English fragrance that was introduced in 2001 by designer Clive Christian
Puig Brands, S.A. is a Spanish fashion and beauty company founded in 1914 by Antonio Puig Castelló in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and still managed by the Puig family.
Silvio Werner Denz is a Swiss businessman and art and wine collector. In the past, he worked for various companies in Switzerland and the United States in the areas of finance, retail and marketing. He is primarily known for his ventures in the hospitality and luxury industry. He acquired Lalique in 2008 and in 2022 Florhof, a historic property in the old town of Zürich, together with Peter Spuhler. This will reopen as Villa Florhof, a Lalique hotel. The Swiss business magazine Bilanz ranks him among the 300 wealthiest Swiss citizens and the 100 most important figures of the Swiss economy.
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George William Septimus Piesse, known as Septimus Piesse, was an English chemist and perfumer. Piesse was a leading author and innovator of modern perfume ideas, inventing the concept of notes in perfumery that are still used universally today. He was the co-owner of Piesse and Lubin, a perfume house that created some of the most popular scents of its day.
Niche perfume is an alternative to mass perfume production. Niche is limited by the clientele and therefore with a limited sale range, thus the goal of niche houses is not to sell as much as possible. These companies are generally smaller than the major fragrance firms like Coty Inc., Puig, and Firmenich, but bigger than "indie perfume" lines that are generally owned and operated by the perfumer themselves. A private perfumer can also be contracted by independent brands to develop a niche perfume collection. Especially since the 2010s, however, the distinction has blurred as more and more niche perfume brands have been purchased by a larger parent corporation.
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