Naomi Goodsir

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History of the house

Naomi Goodsir was founded in 2012 on the French Riviera near Grasse (France) by Australian milliner Naomi Goodsir and creative director Renaud Coutaudier, the couple's home studio rather than a Paris office. The Australian-born founder trained as a fashion designer in Sydney (Australia) before moving to Europe, where she built a couture millinery practice across two decades. She extended her work to perfumery in 2012, viewing fragrance as a continuation of the same craft sensibility.

The house launched in 2012 at the Esxence trade fair in Milan (Italy) with two compositions, Bois d'Ascese and Cuir Velours, both signed by French perfumer Julien Rasquinet. The two releases drew immediate critical attention in English-language fragrance media, with reviews on ÇaFleureBon, Now Smell This and Persolaise treating them as a coherent founding statement rather than a tentative debut.

The founding model relies on collaboration with named independent perfumers. The catalogue lists three signatures since 2012: Julien Rasquinet for Bois d'Ascese (2012), Cuir Velours (2012) and Iris Cendre (2015); Bertrand Duchaufour for Or du Serail (2014) and Corpus Equus (2021); and Isabelle Doyen, the long-time Annick Goutal perfumer, for Nuit de Bakelite (2017). Each release is credited publicly on the official site, in contrast with the unattributed compositions still common in the wider luxury market.

Naomi Goodsir and Renaud Coutaudier relocated to the French Riviera near Grasse (France), where the perfumes are hand-packed and the studio operates. The brand follows a slow release pace, with annual or biennial launches rather than seasonal flankers, and treats each composition as a self-contained narrative project. Naming conventions reflect that posture: Bois d'Ascese evokes ascetic woods, Or du Serail a gilded harem, Iris Cendre an ashen iris, Nuit de Bakelite a bakelite-black night. The house consciously borrows from couture vocabulary, where each piece carries a title and a story.

Recognition has accumulated since 2014. Nuit de Bakelite, signed by Isabelle Doyen in 2017, won the Art and Olfaction Award 2018 and the FIFI Awards France 2018 Best Niche and Independent Brand Fragrance distinction, and was selected by Nez la Revue in its list of 111 perfumes to smell before dying.

Olfactory signature

Naomi Goodsir practices a narrative niche perfumery built around contemplative cultural settings rather than abstract olfactory themes. Each composition is presented as a precise scene: ascetic monastic woods for Bois d'Ascese, an Ottoman harem for Or du Serail, a smoky iris in the aftermath of mourning for Iris Cendre, a black bakelite night for Nuit de Bakelite. The house writes by scenario, not by note pyramid.

The compositions favor dense and slow-moving architectures, anchored by smoked woods, leather, honey, tobacco, incense, iris and dark tuberose. Julien Rasquinet built the founding pair on labdanum, cade, incense and tobacco for Bois d'Ascese, then on honey, rum, suede and styrax for Cuir Velours. Bertrand Duchaufour layered honey, beeswax, tobacco and labdanum on Or du Serail (2014), and reworked a tobacco leather axis on Corpus Equus (2021). Isabelle Doyen recast tuberose as a green chypre rather than a creamy white floral on Nuit de Bakelite.

Three stylistic axes organize the catalogue. The first is a smoky resinous axis, anchored by Bois d'Ascese, with cade wood, frankincense and tobacco set against amber. The second is a honeyed leather axis, anchored by Cuir Velours and extended by Or du Serail and Corpus Equus, where suede, beeswax and rum meet tobacco. The third is a melancholic floral axis, where Iris Cendre treats iris as ashen and earthy, and Nuit de Bakelite treats tuberose as a green chypre with a suede heart.

The other signature marker is the continuity with couture millinery. Naomi Goodsir frames the brand as an extension of her hat-making practice, with the same attention to material, silhouette and proportion. Bottles share a sober black-and-gold visual identity that echoes a couture vocabulary, and presentations have historically taken place during Paris fashion weeks rather than fragrance trade fairs alone. That cross-disciplinary positioning is unusual in niche perfumery and is consistently noted by English-language critics.

A niche perfume house where each composition is built as a self-contained scene, with named independent perfumers credited on every release.

Key characteristics

Notable perfumes

The Naomi Goodsir catalogue brings together a small number of compositions released since 2012, each credited to a named independent perfumer. The following six releases are documented on the official site, a specialist perfume site and an olfactory comparator, with consistent attribution and launch year across the three sources.

The house today

Naomi Goodsir remains an independent niche perfume house, with no acquisition by a luxury group and no external investor publicly documented to date. Naomi Goodsir and Renaud Coutaudier retain full editorial and operational control, and the studio operates on the French Riviera near Grasse (France), where the perfumes are hand-packed.

The house has built a critical reputation within the international niche community, with regular coverage on a specialist perfume site, ÇaFleureBon, Now Smell This, Persolaise, Kafkaesque and Australian Perfume Junkies since 2012. Bois d'Ascese and Nuit de Bakelite are cited in year-end best-of lists by English-language critics, and the brand is referenced alongside continental European independents such as Tauer Perfumes, Slumberhouse and Mona di Orio in editorial comparisons of author-driven niche perfumery. Vogue Italia named Naomi Goodsir among its promising new talents in January 2015.

Distribution remains deliberately selective. Direct sales operate from naomigoodsir.com, while physical retail is concentrated in a small number of specialist niche stores, including Jovoy in Paris (France), Bloom Perfumery in London (United Kingdom), Luckyscent in Los Angeles (United States) and partner perfumeries in Japan. Release pace is slow, with single annual or biennial launches and no seasonal flankers. The catalogue stays under a dozen compositions in 2026, a posture the house describes in interviews as a deliberate editorial choice rather than a constraint.

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