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History of the house
The Gucci house was founded in Florence in 1921 by Guccio Gucci, born in 1881 and who died in 1953. Marked by his time as a porter at the Savoy Hotel in London, where he observed the tastes of a wealthy clientele, Guccio Gucci opened a house of luxury leather goods and travel articles in Florence. Florentine leather craft and a repertoire of iconic motifs made Gucci, over the twentieth century, one of the great Italian houses of fashion and luxury.
At the turn of the 1990s and 2000s, the house went through a spectacular revival under the creative direction of Tom Ford, who put Gucci back at the centre of international fashion. In 1999, Gucci became a subsidiary of the French group Kering. The house then went through several notable creative directorships, including that of Frida Giannini. This fashion history matters for understanding the house's niche perfumery: Gucci approached high perfumery in the wake of a strong artistic direction rather than through a purely cosmetic logic.
In 2015, Alessandro Michele took over creative direction. He imposed a romantic, maximalist and eclectic aesthetic that became one of the most influential visual signatures of the decade. Michele left the house in late 2022, and Sabato De Sarno succeeded him as creative director from January 2023.
Gucci's perfumery is operated under licence by Coty, under the name Gucci Beauty. It has produced several mainstream pillars, such as Gucci Bloom and Gucci Guilty. In 2025, the Kering group announced a planned transfer of its beauty activities to L'Oréal, which is expected to include the fragrance and beauty rights for Gucci once the Coty licence expires.
It was within Alessandro Michele's world that the haute parfumerie collection The Alchemist's Garden was born in 2019, and it is the house's anchor in niche perfumery.
The Alchemist's Garden, the niche collection of Gucci
Launched in January 2019, The Alchemist's Garden is Gucci's haute parfumerie collection and its anchor in niche perfumery. It is composed by perfumer Alberto Morillas, of the house Firmenich, under the artistic direction of Alessandro Michele. The collection takes its name from the house's autumn 2017 runway show and extends its imagination into fragrance.
The concept draws on alchemy and the transformation of lead into gold. The collection is designed for layering: alongside the eaux de parfum, it offers perfumed oils and scented waters that the wearer freely combines to create a personal accord. Each perfume focuses on a single material or idea, from the oud of The Voice of the Snake to the iris of Tears of Iris and the amber of The Eyes of the Tiger.
The collection is unisex, distributed more confidentially than the mainstream pillars, in a selection of Gucci boutiques and chosen points of sale. The apothecary-style bottles are adorned with botanical and animal illustrations that extend Alessandro Michele's erudite, romantic aesthetic. The collection grew after the launch, notably in 2020 with perfumes such as A Chant for the Nymph, still signed by Alberto Morillas.
The Alchemist's Garden is closely tied to the Michele era. Since the creative director's departure in late 2022, no notable new creation has been documented and the line appears largely discontinued in 2024-2025, although some references are still offered by a few retailers. Its availability should therefore be checked case by case.
It is through this collection, rather than its mass-market perfumes, that Gucci held its place in niche perfumery: an author-led, erudite and narrative haute parfumerie, carried by the meeting of a creative director and a great perfumer.
Notable perfumes
Here are seven eaux de parfum from The Alchemist's Garden, all from the 2019 launch and all composed by Alberto Morillas. The attributions rest on the house's own communications and specialist editorial sources.
| Year | Perfume | Perfumer | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | A Song for the Rose | Alberto Morillas | Floral musky rose |
| 2019 | Tears of Iris | Alberto Morillas | Powdery iris floral |
| 2019 | The Eyes of the Tiger | Alberto Morillas | Vanilla amber |
| 2019 | The Last Day of Summer | Alberto Morillas | Woody vetiver patchouli |
| 2019 | The Virgin Violet | Alberto Morillas | Violet iris floral |
| 2019 | The Voice of the Snake | Alberto Morillas | Woody oud saffron |
| 2019 | Winter's Spring | Alberto Morillas | Peppered mimosa floral |
Olfactive signature
Gucci's perfumery reads on two registers. On one side, mainstream pillars with worldwide reach, from the floral of Gucci Bloom to the woody aromatic of Gucci Guilty. On the other, The Alchemist's Garden, a haute parfumerie interlude in which the house entrusted a single perfumer, Alberto Morillas, with translating Alessandro Michele's world.
Within the niche collection, the writing takes a material or an image as its starting point, then stages it in a legible composition that is easy to layer. It moves through floral registers built on rose, iris and violet, woody accords around vetiver and oud, and vanilla amber blends. The layering principle, rare at this level of the market, is one of the collection's singularities.
The olfactive direction is that of Alberto Morillas, a perfumer of the house Firmenich and one of the most prolific authors of contemporary perfumery. On the map of olfactive schools, Gucci belongs to a contemporary luxury perfumery, at the crossroads of Italian imagination and international high perfumery.
The layering ritual deserves a special mention. By offering eaux de parfum, oils and scented waters side by side, the collection invites the wearer to compose a personal accord rather than choose a single perfume. This gesture, borrowed from niche perfumery and oriental layering, sets The Alchemist's Garden apart from most fashion-house collections and makes it as much a collector's object as a perfumery product.