The roses were blooming in the South of France. In the picturesque fort town of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where the sun rises beside a glimpse of the Alps, and aging artists slip on the steep, cobbled streets, Sonia Godet was breaking her grandfather out of his retirement home.
“Do something for me,” Edouard Godet, a former perfumer, had asked her a few moments earlier.
“Of course.”
“Get me out of here.”
Sonia went directly to the reception desk and asked for her grandfather’s wallet, telling staff that they were “going for a little stroll.” Instead, they got into her car, and Sonia drove away—“very fast.”
I was sitting in La Colombe d’Or, a renowned restaurant in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Above me hung a Calder mobile, and there was a Matisse on the opposite wall. Sonia, now 35, was telling me about her grandfather’s great escape when I noticed she had a battered, brown leather briefcase at her feet. I asked her where it came from. “It’s my good luck,” Sonia says. “I cannot be without it.”
In 2016, about a year and a half before the retirement-home breakout, Sonia flew to France from New York. Edouard had been hospitalized by a stroke, and the family was looking for retirement homes for him. Once accomplished, her plan was to return back to New York and her career—she was a “nose” at Cartier—and husband.
Jet-lagged late one night after visiting Edouard in the hospital, she went looking for family mementos in his house, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, to take back to New York, “maybe a teacup or something.” She climbed a wooden ladder to the attic and searched through boxes, photo albums, and piles of furniture. Then, in the gloom, she discovered the briefcase. Inside were bottles of Godet perfume as well as a diary of fragrance recipes created by her great-grandfather Julien-Joseph Godet. It was “like finding treasure.”
Julien-Joseph founded La Maison Godet in 1901. The perfume house soon became synonymous with Saint-Paul-de-Vence and the artists who holidayed there. Julien-Joseph mingled with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Marc Chagall at La Colombe d’Or, where the artists often paid for their meals with paintings and sculptures, and where they would ask him to create perfumes for them.
Pierre Bonnard asked Julien-Joseph for a scent for his beloved wife, Marthe, and Fleurs de Reine was born. Chagall and his wife, Bella, both wore Godet Cuire de Russie. And when Matisse asked Julien-Joseph to make a perfume for his muse, the dancer Henriette Darricarrère, Julien-Joseph created one with local violets and called it Folie Bleue.
It was “like finding treasure.”
But the beginning of Godet’s end had started even before its inception. Until 1874, essential oils had been the dominant ingredient in fragrances. But that year, Haarmann & Reimer discovered a way to synthesize vanillin—the main chemical compound of the vanilla bean. The first perfumes believed to contain synthetic molecules—Fougère Royale, by Houbigant, in 1884, and Guerlain’s Jicky, in 1889—followed shortly after. By 1956, and the arrival of Dior’s innovative Diorissmo, which used a synthetic aroma to duplicate lily of the valley, it seemed like all the big brands were employing synthetics—except Godet.
Edouard, who had taken over the business, believed that Godet fragrances were special because of their distinctive blend of natural—but expensive—ingredients. The market didn’t agree. The company went bankrupt in 1971, and everything to do with Godet was discarded or given away—or so the family thought.
A generation passed, with Godet’s legacy receding further into the past, becoming like a family secret. “Godet [perfume] was taboo when I was growing up,” Sonia says. “No one ever spoke of it.” From a young age, she knew that she wanted to work with perfumes, but Edouard’s aspiration for her was to join a big commercial brand. “He wanted to protect me,” says Sonia.
However, after finding the briefcase in the attic, Sonia decided to quit her job at Cartier and try to revive Godet. She says the briefcase and its contents “felt like my great-grandfather was sending me a message: ‘You cannot go back now.’”
When she visited Edouard in his retirement home and told him of her plans, he feared that she would suffer his fate. Haunted by the pain of losing his father’s legacy and unconvinced the perfume market would welcome its return, he told Sonia that Godet was “shit” and pleaded with her to “please leave it alone.” She set about trying to change his mind.
Sonia began reclaiming the family history, bottle by bottle. “I went to auctions, to family, to eBay, to flea markets to find our perfume.” Using her great-grandfather’s newly unearthed recipes, Sonia spent nine months perfecting Folie Bleue.
In those months, her marriage disintegrated and she was refused a loan by every bank that she approached. It was risky—everything was to be handmade; there was to be a small, “exclusive” distribution; and the margins were low. Sonia describes the business plan as “the opposite strategy of a ‘regular’ fragrance business.”
Despite setbacks, Edouard’s ill health continued to be drive her on. “He had all the secrets,” Sonia says. “I had no time to waste.” In the retirement home, Sonia asked Edouard to tell her what he thought of her first Godet re-creation. “It’s Folie Bleue,” he said, crying. “There’s nothing like it.”
He told Sonia that Godet was “shit” and pleaded with her to “please leave it alone.”
In 2017, in a shop just down the street from Godet’s first, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Sonia offered her grandfather’s six original scents, eventually adding 18 more. She now sells around 3,000 bottles a year—a tiny amount compared with the millions the big brands sell—for up to $300 a bottle. Contained within the pages of her great-grandfather’s diary were some special tips. For years, Sonia had wanted to make a classic lavender perfume with a twist. The diary suggested mixing turmeric with lavender to create a more complex, sensual scent. “They don’t teach you that in school,” she says. Godet’s Calme & Volupté was the result.
Godet remains artisanal: everything is natural, largely sourced in the nearby area of Grasse, and hand-poured (usually by Sonia’s new husband, Jad). What caused Godet’s failure in the 1970s is now the core of its success. “It is difficult for independent brands like Godet,” says Sylvie Jourdet, the treasurer of the International Society of Perfumer-Creators. “But a lot of people who really love perfume now want something exclusive, creative, and artistic.”
And, like the perfume of Sonia’s ancestors, Godet’s fragrances continue to attract the eminent and well known. Before their deaths, Pierre Cardin and Jacques Chirac were both Sonia’s customers. Michelle Pfeiffer has bought from Godet, too, according to Sonia. And Sonia received a call from Steven Spielberg, who invited her to bring every Godet sample to dinner with him at La Colombe d’Or. He eventually chose a scent Sonia had created after a hike through nearby pine forests to the sea, called Rendez-vous au Cap Ferrat.
Edouard died in 2019, at the age of 94. As I followed Sonia around, I noted that, for three days, the brown leather briefcase was with her wherever she went. Despite its presence, I never saw her open it and I never asked to look inside. Godet’s ghosts deserved some rest.
Jade Angeles Fitton is a writer, a journalist, and an award-winning producer
