Known as a French fashion designer, perfumer, photographer, director, and hairstylist, Serge Lutens is most recognized for the fashion house and perfume company bearing his name. Born in 1942 in Lille, a city in northern France, Lutens began working at the age of fourteen as an apprentice in a hair salon. At twenty, he moved to Paris, where he started working for Vogue as a photographer, leaving a significant mark on the magazine. Five years later, he continued shaping trends as the artistic director of makeup at Christian Dior, where he created a makeup line. Thus, at the beginning of his career, he experimented with makeup, photography, and film.
When discussing Serge Lutens in general, his story would unfold with pages about his creative vision, key life experiences, and the inspirations encountered throughout his career – a lifelong exploration and discovery filled with inspiration and awakening.
However, now we speak about the story of Serge Lutens' perfumes, for he was awarded the Fifi Award for the best original concept in perfumes between 2001 and 2004.
The Serge Lutens perfume collection comprises over 60 unique creations. Each Serge Lutens perfume is a self-expression, a literary creation. For him, perfume is an attitude, a form of self-expression, carrying the story of his life.
How did Serge Lutens find his way into the world of perfumes? “Like anything else, it wasn’t really a choice. A choice is never truly conscious,” Serge Lutens confesses. He believes that life choices are never conscious or according to a plan. Life presents itself, much like his encounter with the delicate scent of Moroccan cedarwood, which inspired him to create Féminité du bois. At the age of 25, he traveled to Morocco for the first time. The city of Marrakech, nicknamed "The Red City," with its pure and refreshing air, the amber hidden in a wooden box from the antique market, awakened his senses, inspiring him. His sense of smell, in particular, was captivated by the aromas of Morocco, which became an unforgettable place for Serge Lutens. The fragrance of Morocco remained in his memories.
In 1992, the delicate scent of Moroccan cedarwood became the central element of Serge Lutens' creation. He wasn’t afraid to break gender stereotypes in the perfume industry and created the first unisex perfume, Féminité du bois, a soft and spicy woody scent.
Since then, Serge Lutens has invented a series of unique perfumes that attracted nonconformists. These individuals affirmed their choices, tastes, and individuality through scents. Serge Lutens’ perfumes emerged as an alternative voice during the social revolution.
Even though his perfumes were niche at the time, they were powerful enough to allow Serge Lutens to continue his adventure. He evolved to adopt a more sensitive, literary approach. Tubéreuse Criminelle, Muscs Khoublaï Khan, Cuir Mauresque, Ambre Sultan, etc. Their names evoked fantastical visions from long-forgotten tales.
For several years, Serge Lutens dedicated his olfactory and beauty creations to a special place: Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido. Among the renowned tenants of the Palais Royal, the famous palace of Cardinal Richelieu and the Dukes of Orleans, was Serge Lutens, who, as the artistic director at Shiseido, the Japanese cosmetics brand, amazed the world with his perfumes. He opened one of the most elegant perfumeries in Paris, a small and chic salon located right under the stone arcades of the royal palace/Palais Royal, facing its gardens and fountain. A dream corner, a place seemingly taken from a richly illustrated fairy tale: a room in various shades of violet, from delicate orchid to deep violet, hand-painted with delicate drawings. Strange, dizzying sun faces gaze solemnly from sculpted molds; in the murals, a beetle in a top hat dances with another in a long skirt; a pair of swans tie a bow with their beaks. A sky-colored ceiling sparkles with stars; the floor shines with inlaid marble. A complicated filigree metal staircase spirals up from the center to a golden room above.
This magical space is Serge Lutens' creation, who, as Shiseido’s artistic director in the 1980s, developed the image of the Japanese luxury company with his seasonal perfumes and makeup lines. With "carte blanche" to launch a perfumery (as Shiseido's image boutique in Paris), Lutens created this extraordinary dream world in 1992.
Since then, Lutens has created several new fragrances each year under his own name, now totaling over 60. Drawing inspiration from many sources, from the spice markets of Marrakech, where he spends part of the year, to literary descriptions of perfumes like Baudelaire’s, he produced sumptuous, lush, complex, and unforgettable scents. These cover the entire spectrum of perfume families: the florals include Lys (lily), Rose de Nuit, and a delightful Fleur d'Oranger; among the many woody perfumes are a pure sandalwood (Santal de Mysore) and Bois de Violette; other standouts include Encens et Lavande (incense and lavender), Ambre Sultan, and La Myrrhe.
The most voluptuous might be Rahät Loukoum, a blend of bitter almond, musk, and heliotrope. Iris Silver Mist was inspired by Simonetta Vespucci, the Florentine beauty who was Botticelli's muse and whose distinctive fragrance was Iris Pallida. And certainly not for the faint-hearted – there's Tubéreuse Criminelle.
The store in Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido also offers Lutens' limited but superb makeup line because, beyond perfumes, photography, and film, Serge Lutens’ career encompasses much beauty, as he is one of the most inspired beauty visionaries of all time, with an incredibly strong, magical, and provocative style. He used makeup as a tool to reshape the human face in new extremes. Thanks to Lutens, editorials and advertisements suddenly portrayed women differently. Like a cosmetic psychoanalyst, Lutens used these images to explore the depths of our fears and fantasies. His approach to makeup was integrated into a larger image. His women are ethereal, mysterious, almost haunting, but always incredibly beautiful.
In 1968, at the age of 26, Lutens became the image director for Dior Beauty, creating his first full makeup line and overseeing every creative aspect, from makeup colors to editorial images. His work at Dior laid the foundation for how luxury brands would develop and market beauty lines. But the pinnacle of Lutens' career came with his appointment at Shiseido in 1980, which gave him the freedom and abundant resources to create some of the most memorable commercial images of the late 20th century. In turn, he transformed the brand from a little-known entity outside Japan into an industry titan. At Shiseido, he launched a style of beauty advertising that survives to this day. Meanwhile, his eponymous cosmetics line, launched in 2000, is a set of tools with purple and red lipsticks, a variety of primers for creating flawless skin, and precision eyeliner.
For Serge Lutens, working with the skin has always been key to shaping the face. The face is like a blank canvas, and makeup is used to give structure to the facial features and play with lights and shadows, not to add color to the face. Foundation can be used to sculpt rather than color, creating a shadow and light effect. Serge Lutens sees this as a way to "bring out the true complexion." To emphasize the eyes, Serge Lutens has always played with complementary contrasts and the boldest extremes.
The Serge Lutens beauty line brings together supreme makeup. From the complexion to the lips, eyes, and even the tips of the nails, every product, every color reflects Serge Lutens' dedicated attitude combined with the unique expertise and savoir-faire of the most specialized laboratories. The result: a collection of high-definition makeup housed in sumptuous cases.
Serge Lutens created his own perfume brand after five decades of life in 2000, Parfums-Beaute Serge Lutens. In just a few years, the brand established its uniqueness in the global perfume landscape. Even today, Lutens' most passionate pursuit is perfumes. Lutens creates all his perfumes in a laboratory within the Serge Lutens Foundation, a complex of over 3,000 square meters that he built in the heart of Marrakech, belonging to Morocco, which will remain his legacy. Lutens designed everything to create the sensation of emerging from interiors (womb-like) to be born into the light. It is the story of his childhood and life.
Serge Lutens' perfumes embody his soul and share his olfactory memories filled with laughter and tears from every journey; they are unprecedented and authentic. For him, perfume is a bridge between image and words, helping him record every experience. A Serge Lutens perfume is not just a blend of ingredients; it is the essence of an experience, a certain sensitivity.
Among Serge Lutens' perfume collections, Matin Lutens, launched in 2022 to mark 30 years since Lutens opened his purple seraglio at the Palais Royal boutique Les Salons du Palais Royal Serge Lutens, is worth mentioning. His initial products included Féminité Du Bois (claiming to be the first feminine perfume based on woody notes on the market at the time) and four variants, each highlighting a specific ingredient. Serge has been a patron of niche perfumery ever since.
Matin Lutens is a line that evokes, through its refined aesthetics and purity, the simplicity of a ritual focused on the essentials of the morning: water, bath, and... a few drops of perfume. With natural ingredients and bold colors that evoke rediscovered tranquility in perfect harmony with the organic spirit of the olfactory creations in this collection, Matin Lutens offers everyone a much-awaited return to basics: the serenity of awakening in a state of grace.
The trio of perfumes is inspired by Serge’s childhood memories, especially during bath time with its halo of safety and euphoria, and particularly by water with explorations into citrus facets and memories of seawater. The perfumes in this collection are made in collaboration with Shiseido (founded in Japan), which owns the Lutens brand and oversees the procedures. The bottles adopt the architectural style of his Eaux collection, with the elongated character reminiscent of expressionism so beloved by Serge himself. According to Shiseido, the body care line was designed to embrace the interconnectedness between scent and touch.
Starting in 2024, Serge Lutens' Matin Lutens collection also includes the eau de parfum Point Du Jour – an ethereal aromatic dry and noble unisex scent; "a noble awakening with thyme at sunrise." Point du jour is a simple, elemental refuge. It is as comforting as the scent of dried Mediterranean thyme when rubbed between the hands. It is a tonic inspired by the bubbling of a stream. Serge Lutens opens a window of self-discovery, a breath of fresh and invigorating purification where the facets of thyme awaken and comfort.
Collection Noire is a collection of iconic perfumes, each representing a moment of our own. Compact and easy to carry, these perfumes come in two variants – for elegance, choose the cap; for ease of use, choose the spray nozzle.
Flacons de table contains the perfumes of a collection sold only in the most prestigious stores. They are easily recognized by the iconic Palais Royal bottle with rounded shoulders and a pharmacy stopper.
Reaching the heights of refinement, the Gratte-Ciel perfume collection brings us the Art Deco style and the iconic olfactory signatures of their creator, a vertiginous horizon.
In the Rituel de Parfum collection, inspired by the North African approach to perfumery – generous, invading space and the senses – Serge Lutens evokes the traditions of the hammam, a ceremonial. The reinterpretation of the balms and ointments of his beauty rituals puts us in touch with the same symbolic gestures. This ritual can be enjoyed with the famous Confit de parfum perfumes: "La fille de Berlin," "Ambre sultan," and "Chergui."
An eternal storyteller, a dreamer rooted in exploration, Serge Lutens transports us into a world created by him through the At Home collection: five memorable olfactory journeys through five houses, each reflecting a facet of his personality; five scents inspired by five different locations – the Moroccan house, the Moroccan garden, the Japanese house, the Scottish house, and a linen closet – available as a home spray, incense with a holder shaped like a black thread of smoke, and a diffuser resembling a pagoda. Lutens notes that variety and, unusually for him, subtlety were important for this collection.
One could say that Serge Lutens' world is a demanding one, as for the realization of his perfumes, Serge Lutens favors the use of premium-quality raw materials of natural origin, driven by the belief that only these can ensure the full and complex evolution of the perfume on the skin. Serge Lutens' products are known for their natural ingredients and remarkable effectiveness.
"It is still great to explore, to know you will become intellectually and spiritually richer, and nothing is ever finished until it is really finished." says Serge Lutens, now in his eighties.
Serge Lutens' perfumes tell his story. According to him, "choosing a perfume is like daring to be yourself. The decision is yours."
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