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The tradition of French perfume manufacture goes back many centuries.
Today,
French perfumes account for a substantial share of world perfume exports
and four of the eight major groups in the sector are French. As an evanescent
product par excellence, supporting thousands of jobs and colossal sales
figures, perfume is a luxury product that is increasingly popular; as
a sector, it has, for a number of years, undergone some considerable
changes.
Rarely has an industrial sector of such importance consisted of so many
contradictions: as the quintessence of luxury, sensuality and refinement,
the perfume industry is also the domain of powerful industrialists,
of experts in marketing and publicity launches at the global level.
In spite of the product's somewhat frivolous connotation, the perfume
industry has drifted through the recession virtually unaffected, without
ever dropping into negative figures (in France, nine out of every ten
women and one out of two men use perfume).
And
despite several centuries of tradition, French perfume
manufacturers now use state of the art technologies. Perfumes are perfected
by inspired inventors (the famous "noses" skilled in the art
of blending different essences) who know all about the latest findings
in chemistry as well as the market prices of expensive natural raw materials.
Perfumes are packaged with care, given evocative names and labeled by
all the greatest fashion names.
Nonetheless, they have never been as popular and are now sold on the shelves
of large stores. At the same time, perfumes appeal not only to women but
also more and more to men, young people and even children, a market in
full expansion. In this sector, France occupies pride of place, with four
corporations in the leading pack, followed by a myriad of more modest
companies. As a whole, the industry represents a domestic market, but
not forgetting that French perfumes represent a good share of
world exports in this sector.
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