Château de Versailles creates the Perfumer’s Garden thanks to support from Maison Francis Kurkdjian

© Château de Versailles / T. Garnier 

Maison Francis Kurkdjian has become a patron of the Château de Versailles, providing support for creation of the ‘Perfumer’s Garden’. Situated in the Châteauneuf Orangerie garden in the heart of the Trianon estate, this garden will be home to hundreds of different plants used in perfume-making. It will open in spring 2023.

The fruit of exceptional collaboration between the Trianon’s gardeners and Francis Kurkdjian, the Perfumer’s Garden will showcase hundreds of fragrant species, inspired by the spirit of the 17th-century Trianon gardens.

This exceptional garden will include traditional species such as roses and jasmine, as well as plants with surprising scents, ranging from chocolate to apple. There will also be malodorous plants and so-called ‘mute’ plants such as hyacinth, peony and violet, whose scent must be reproduced synthetically for fragrances.

© Château de Versailles / T. Garnier 

Visitors will also be able to discover the rich history of perfumes in the court of Versailles. In the 17th century, as Louis XIV commissioned work on the Trianon de Porcelaine, which later became the Grand Trianon, flowers became extremely fashionable and the Trianon gardens were abloom with heady fragrant species. At the same time, a craze for perfumes burgeoned at the court of Versailles, making the palace the cradle of the perfume-making craft from the late 17th century onwards.

Francis Kurkdjian has had an intimate affinity with the Château de Versailles from the very beginnings of his career. Just a few years after graduating from Versailles’ perfumery school, he recreated Marie-Antoinette’s ‘Sillage de la Reine’ scent, working from archival documents. In 2006, Marc Chaya – co-founder of Maison Francis Kurkdjian – and Francis Kurkdjian created together the olfactory installation ‘Soleil de Minuit’ for the Versailles Off festival. And during the Grandes Eaux Nocturnes night fountains shows in 2007 and 2008, the perfumer crafted an olfactory experience in the heart of the Château de Versailles gardens.

© Château de Versailles / T. Garnier 

With the ‘Perfumer’s Garden‘, visitors will have a chance to discover Versailles from a fresh bucolic perspective amidst a captivating garden previously closed to the public.

Must de Cartier Gold

Over thirty years after the very inception of Must de Cartier, the Maison’s In-House Perfumer Mathilde Laurent has worked with Givaudan, the fragrance company that created the original Must de Cartier in 1981, to concoct an Eau de Parfum. Must was composed.

Must was composed in 1981 by perfumer Jean-Jacques Diener as a green Oriental Eau de Toilette. An innovation in the early 80’s, Must was the first ever green oriental essence, while the jewel-like refillable bottle was also the first of its kind. In another first, Cartier debuted the concept of the perfume launch in a spectacular event featuring a disco dance show and fireworks, attended by an unprecedented gathering of the international jet set, all set against the backdrop of a giant perfume bottle – at Château de Versailles, no less.

Must de Cartier captured incomparable freshness in an oriental fragrance with the very green note of galbanum. Marked by a heavy presence of jasmine and vanilla underpinned with the galbanum, Must de Cartier was an olfactory shockwave that shook up the very boundaries of the fragrance world.

Must de Cartier Gold Eau de Parfum is a real beautiful variation on jasmine with the joyous intensity of osmanthus stirring up the legendary sensuality of the Must de Cartier fragrance. A sensuous oriental fragrance with a delicate sweet fruitiness, it is the dazzling reintrepretation of the original, legendary Must de Cartier perfume, that pulses with the decadence of sparkling floral notes of jasmine, blackcurrant bud and a colourful burst of osmanthus.

• Top notes: Galbanum and green leaves
• Middle notes: Jasmine and osmanthus
• Base note is vanilla

Tastefully updated by Cartier, the famous gadroons of the original bottle are now the dominant feature in the original oval bottle, which glows like never before.