00:00Class is well known for perfume nowadays, but since the Middle Ages, these people working
00:28here were producing leather.
00:35So here you can see the laboratory because we receive already the pure essence.
00:58We are here in this old distillery, photos show how it was worked until 1960, but the
01:16building itself has been here since 1782.
01:20Here you can see the map, which shows roughly the different possibilities of fragrances,
01:27or plants where the fragrances have to be extracted first and then the perfumes from it.
01:36And always in a cold state you have to treat these flowers to get essence.
01:45What you can see here is the method, which for a very long time was the only way to get
01:54fat as a base.
01:56Animal fat, usually mixed with pork and beef fat.
02:01And here on this glass plate, spread, thin, a very thin layer, the flowers you see here
02:08are jasmine flowers.
02:10These jasmine flowers were picked by hand, that still remains today.
02:15On average, one ton of flowers give one liter of essence, so a huge amount.
02:22The flowers were put on this layer of fat by hand for 24 hours.
02:29Every day, for four weeks, you had to exchange the flowers.
02:35It took this time to transfer the whole essence, the molecules, into the fat and then keep it.
02:49What you can also experience here is a long tradition of perfumery in general.
02:55Here in the Gegen you have had this tradition since the 17th, 16th century.
03:01This tradition started with the processing of leather.
03:06So the tanning was the main activity.
03:08Gradually they used the perfume, the essence they won to make perfume out of it,
03:14to make the leather smell better.
03:17This perfumery has developed further through Catherine de' Medici.
03:21This is a princess from Florence, or Firenze, who married a French king
03:27and created this fashion, perfumed leather gloves,
03:30which her personal perfumer, René Le Florentin, created for her.
03:35Gradually, all noble courtyards, men and women, wore perfumed leather gloves.
03:43They thought, not only to be fashionable and elegant,
03:46but that it was a protection against epidemics and disease spread.
03:49A second skin, and then perfume, would be a natural barrier,
03:54a scent barrier, to prevent the disease from spreading.
03:59Then it spread further.
04:02This Gontier perfumery was officially named in the 17th century, here in Grasse.
04:09And then the perfumers slowly established themselves,
04:12and no longer associated with leather, but only with perfume.
04:15And industrialization began in the 20th century.
04:19The perfumers of Grasse stayed in the old town for centuries.
04:24But at the end of the 19th century, they improved the technique of distillation,
04:28for example, and so they needed more space.
04:31So that's why, in 1890, the most big factories were built outside the city,
04:39outside the wall, in order to have better production.
04:43And they are also next to the fields of Jasmine and Rose.
04:50The Gontier Perfumery
05:02This factory, the Perfumery in the region, is the most recent and popular.
05:11It's the oldest perfumery since 1926.
05:16And we have the same family since 1926.
05:20And this one, Grasse, is the world's capital of perfume.
05:29So here you can see, on this map, you can see the raw materials from all over the world.
05:37So here you can see the laboratory, because we receive already the pure essence,
05:43and then we check, we control the quality of the essence.
05:47We can compose each composition, each base,
05:51because we make here eau de toilette, eau de parfum, and perfume.
05:57The difference between eau de toilette, eau de parfum, and perfume,
06:00is the concentration of the essence.
06:03Eau de toilette is very light.
06:05There is just 10% of the essence with water and alcohol.
06:09Eau de toilette stays only two or three hours on the skin.
06:13Eau de parfum, 15%.
06:15And the perfume, the best quality, there are 25% of the essence with alcohol, no water.
06:23The perfume stays all day on your skin.
06:26So here, we make, in this laboratory, we make eau de toilette, eau de parfum, and perfume.
06:32And we use between 50 scents and 250 scents for each perfume, yes.
06:40We have a lot of raw materials. It's very important.
06:43Because each perfume is created by famous noses.
07:05A nose is a talent.
07:07It's very difficult to become a nose.
07:11Because there are just three schools in the world.
07:18Two in Paris and one in Grasse.
07:21And there are 10 years of school, of training to become 10 years of school.
07:27So, here you can see the conditioning, the packaging.
07:41There are just two machines, semi-automatic. It's very manual.
07:45You can see there are different ladies.
07:49And 10, 10, yes, 15, 15 persons, you work here.
07:56And just two machines, semi-automatic.
07:58The first machine, refill of the bottle with eau de toilette, eau de parfum, and perfume.
08:04Here is for just a small size.
08:07And here you can see the refill.
08:09It's a big bottle.
08:11Very important because you can open each spray and you can refill by yourself the bottle with this refill.
08:20Six Harman Mil, the factory sizes, the big bottle, six Harman Mil.
08:26All is done by hand.
08:28It's a traditional method of Fragonard.
08:49It's a traditional method of Fragonard.
