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Rochas

Femme

1944ChypreEDPFrance

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Editorial notes

  1. 01

    A stewed-plum chypre composed in occupied Paris during the war, the formula that launched Edmond Roudnitska's career at thirty-nine.

  2. 02

    Marcel Rochas commissioned it as a gift for his young wife Hélène, the embodiment of the modern woman. Roudnitska had been quietly developing the plum-peach lactonic accord for years.

  3. 03

    Olivier Cresp reissued the formula in 1989 with a prominent cumin top note absent from the original. The post-1989 version is what most contemporary wearers know.

  4. 04

    Composed by Edmond Roudnitska in 1944, his debut masterpiece, in a curved Marc Lalique amphora wrapped in black Chantilly lace.

Dossier

Edition · 000

Status · Active. Reformulated 1989.

A stewed plum chypre.◐ Reformulated since launch

Composed by
Edmond Roudnitska
Bottle by
Marc Lalique
Founder
Marcel Rochas
Country
France

The pyramid

Top
plumpeachbergamotrosewoodlemon
Heart
jasminerosecarnationylang-ylangorris
Base
oakmossleatherpatchouliambermuskbenzoin

The brief

Roudnitska composed it in his Paris apartment during the German occupation, using a plum-peach lactonic accord he had been developing for years; he was just 39 and still relatively unknown.

Name'Femme' — Marcel Rochas conceived it as a gift for his young wife Hélène, the embodiment of the modern woman.

Why it mattered

  • Roudnitska's first masterpiece and the launchpad for his career — every later Roudnitska composition (Diorissimo, Eau Sauvage, Diorella) carries the same precise architectural restraint Femme established.

The flacon

Curved 'amphora' flacon shaped after Mae West's silhouette, wrapped in black Chantilly lace by Lalique.

Reformulated · 1989

Cresp's 1989 reissue added a prominent cumin top note absent from the original; the post-1989 version is what most contemporary wearers know.

Cause · Olivier Cresp added cumin and was widely seen as having modernised the original

The Curator's Note

Roudnitska started here. Everything else he did was a footnote.

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