Grasse, France - Perfume's first city of Grasse in southern France has reopened the doors of its fragrance museum, four years after they were shuttered for renovations. The International Perfume Museum is bigger and better than ever after extensive renovations and enlargement. It now has double the floor space and a beautiful new glass gallery with a view of the Esterel mountains.
Of the museum's 50,000 items, 3,500 are now on display. The overhaul cost the city and surrounding province 14 million euros (18.81 million dollars).
"We are convinced that the new museum will be a cultural and economic motor for the city," said Mayor Jean-Pierre Leleux during Saturday's opening ceremony.
This gem of a southern French town owes its international reputation to fragrances. More than 40 professional "noses" work in the city's three world-famous perfumeries: Fragonard, Molinard and Galimard. Legendary fragrances like Chanel No.5 and Eau Sauvage from Christian Dior were born here.
The area is also blessed with the building blocks of good perfume. Jasmine, lavender, roses and mimosas all thrive here.
The town has turned these raw materials into gold. The story of the region starts 7,000 years before the birth of Christ.
Visitors to the museum first come across glass and terra cotta vessels, stemming from the time when people burned fragrant herbs and plants to seek communion with the gods.
The collection includes one particularly special piece: a beautifully decorated Greek aryballos: an open salt container with rounded openings stemming from the 6th century BC.
The museum consists of multiple building and masonry styles: the newly-renovated three-storey Townhouse Hotel Morel-Ponteves from the 18th century; the old museum in the former Hugues-Aine perfumery, a 19th-century building; and a part of the town's medieval city wall. All were built in markedly different styles, which architect Frederic Jung managed to link together.
"We protected the special features of each building," Leleux said. "It wasn't easy."
The glass gallery links all these different architectural styles, joining the grand yellow house with the old museum while still providing a view of the 14th-century city wall, which used to separate the buildings.
The wall also separates the collections between the historical and the current. Hundreds of perfume containers from prehistoric times, antiquity, the Rococo age and the early 19th century all reside in the Morel-Ponteves hotel. The 20th century, represented by designer flagons, is presented in the older parts of the museum.
There's also a great view from the glass gallery into the copper alembics, the distillery machines, where the wonderful fragrances are created.
Marie-Antoinette's travel utility suitcase is the highlight of this singular perfume collection. Weighing in at 80 kilograms, its contents run the gamut from hot water bottles to containers for powder to a picnic set.
The queen allegedly had it with her during her flight from French revolutionaries in 1791. It now resides in one of the townhouse's halls, which used to house a revolutionary court and is still painted in the national colours of blue, white and red.
Grasse proudly considers itself the capital of perfumes. To that end, it plans to improve and enlarge its museum further in the coming years. Plans are already under way to expand an old perfume factory so its distilleries can be put on display.
Internet: www.museesdegrasse.com
