A limited-edition bottle of Shalimar was chosen for the Comité Colbert exhibition for a multitude of reasons.
It was selected by Ann-Caroline Prazan, artistic director of art, culture and heritage at Guerlain, now owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. She explained Guerlain was the first French beauty company to go to New York to set up an office and a boutique in 1927. Therefore, the strong link between the brand and the U.S. spans almost 100 years — a fact unknown by many.
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Shalimar, which was developed by Jacques Guerlain in 1925, has become iconic. It was the first major amber perfume in modern fragrance history. Shalimar gleaned inspiration from the legendary love between Emperor Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, and has a name evoking the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, in Punjab, Pakistan.
Shalimar was presented at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925. The style on display there later became known as Art Deco.
Raymond Guerlain was the Guerlain family member who traveled to New York two years later to establish the subsidiary there. On the transatlantic boat trip, Guerlain’s wife Marie wore the scent and inadvertently became Shalimar’s first ambassador.
“During this cruise, all the American women — very chic — smelled the fragrance and decided to choose Shalimar for [themselves],” Prazan said. “It was a success already on the boat.”
The bottle shown at the Comité Colbert exhibition was made in 2015 to celebrate Shalimar’s 90th birthday. Its midnight-blue glass was by Waltersperger, and it comes ornamented with a sculpture of two inseparable birds by Desrues. The birds symbolize Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal’s eternal love.
“Since the beginning, the Guerlain family was totally in love with artists, and when they went to New York, they discovered the power of [advertising], thanks to the famous photographers,” Prazan said. “They collaborated with the most important artists in the U.S.”
Also at the Comité Colbert exhibition is an advertisement for Shalimar dating from 1935. It features an illustration by Lyse Darcy of a woman’s face and a bottle of Shalimar. Words above them spell out: “Are you her type?”
“Andy Warhol was totally crazy about Shalimar,” Prazan said. “He wore it all his life.”
The perfume, created for women, was an immediate success in the U.S., which remains one of the most important markets for Shalimar today. The fragrance’s centenary anniversary, in 2025, was celebrated at New York’s Waldorf Astoria with an exhibition there celebrating Art Deco.
But while it might be more than 100 years old, Shalimar remains youthful.
“Vintage is the new cool,” Prazan said. “We have the pleasure, with Shalimar, to have a perfume that crosses so many generations. The transmission is not finished yet.”
An additional fact that ties it all together: The Guerlain family is the reason the Comité Colbert came to be. It was initiated by Jean-Jacques Guerlain, the son of Jacques Guerlain.