Quick answers
History
The house was born in 2002 as Parfumerie Générale, a play on the initials of its founder, Pierre Guillaume. A trained chemist from an Auvergne family of chemists, he had collected essential oils and fragrant materials since childhood. At twenty-five he set out to recreate the smell of his father’s cigar cellar; the resulting spicy-tobacco accord, 02 Coze, became his first perfume, built on the so-called Épicène-Gamma base of chilli, clove and nutmeg.
02 Coze was quickly noticed. Chandler Burr, then perfume critic at the New York Times, hailed it in the mid-2000s as the work of a young French chemist behind one of Europe’s coolest new fragrances. That early acclaim launched the house in the emerging fragrance blogosphere and set its signature at once: a chemist’s perfumery, at once technical and poetic.
The house is organised around a numbered collection. Each olfactory theme carries a figure that Pierre Guillaume explores then varies: tobaccos sit under theme 02, musks under 04, aromatic flowers under 09, figs under 16, orange blossoms under 19. Variations of a theme take a decimal, as with 04 Musc Maori giving rise to 04.1 Le Musc et la Peau. This numbering, inherited from Parfumerie Générale, remains the backbone of the catalogue.
Pierre Guillaume claims complete independence. In 2010 he created the company Pierre Guillaume Diffusion with its own production tool: a composition studio, a raw-material cellar and a packaging line dedicated to his creations. A second workshop opened in 2015, then a new Manufacture in Auvergne in 2023, at Clermont-Ferrand. The house reports distribution across nearly 400 points of sale in 37 countries while keeping design and manufacturing in-house. Over the years he gathered his work under the Pierre Guillaume Paris label, structuring the Numbered Collection (the heir to Parfumerie Générale), the Black Collection (descended from his 2010 Huitième Art line), the Cruise Collection (2015) and the White Collection (2019). He also took artistic direction of the house Phaedon Paris from 2010, acquiring the trademark in 2013.
The Numbered Collection, signature of Pierre Guillaume Paris
The Numbered Collection is the matrix of the house and what sets it apart in niche perfumery. Inherited from Parfumerie Générale, it rests on a simple principle: each family of inspiration carries a figure, and Pierre Guillaume returns to it freely, without chronological logic, to explore new facets. The number precedes the perfume’s name and works as a key to reading the catalogue.
The system allows explicit lineages. Theme 04, devoted to musks, gathers 04 Musc Maori (2005), a milky, chocolatey gourmand, then its skin-close rewriting 04.1 Le Musc et la Peau (2016), where the musk accord is stripped of its cocoa coating to leave only a second-skin trail. The decimal signals the olfactory kinship that other houses would scatter under unrelated names.
This numbered grammar gives the house a rare coherence: it reads as a work in progress rather than an assortment of launches, and offers the visitor a clear entry point organised by materials and accords.
Perfumes
The house grew around its numbered collection, where Pierre Guillaume signs every composition. Here are a few landmarks, from the founding tobacco to the gourmand musks and amber woods that made its name.
| Year | Perfume | Perfumer | Olfactory family |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 02 Coze | Pierre Guillaume | Spicy tobacco |
| 2005 | 04 Musc Maori | Pierre Guillaume | Gourmand musk |
| 2006 | 10 Aomassaï | Pierre Guillaume | Woody oriental |
| 2007 | Cuir d’Iris | Pierre Guillaume | Iris leather |
| 2008 | 21 Felanilla | Pierre Guillaume | Spicy oriental vanilla |
| 2010 | 16.1 Bois Naufragé | Pierre Guillaume | Salty amber wood |
| 2016 | 04.1 Le Musc et la Peau | Pierre Guillaume | Musk |
Signature
The signature of Pierre Guillaume Paris rests first on a chemist’s approach: Pierre Guillaume builds his perfumes around bases he develops himself, such as the Épicène-Gamma accord that opens 02 Coze. That technical command feeds a perfumery he wants narrative and wearable, where the legibility of the trail matters as much as the boldness of the idea.
The house repertoire favours gourmand musks, amber woods and spices, with a marked taste for milky materials, tobacco, fig and leather. Its accords are recognisable by an enveloping roundness and a measured sweetness that made the success of Aomassaï and Musc Maori.
A chemist’s perfumery, contemporary and wearable, organised in numbered themes and composed single-handedly by Pierre Guillaume in the heart of Auvergne.