Fragrance house

Costes

Costes traces its public identity to brothers Jean-Louis and Gilbert Costes, whose 1983 Café Costes in Paris established a design-led hospitality formula with Philippe Starck. The brothers bought the future Hôtel Costes from Hilton Group in the early 1990s, and the hotel opened in Paris in 1995. Jacques Garcia designed its original interiors, introducing a theatrical, anti-minimalist setting that became part of Costes’ visual identity. In 2011, Jean-Louis Costes acquired the adjacent Hôtel Lotti; from 2015, Christian Liaigre redesigned the property and connected it with Hôtel Costes and a third property under the single name Le Costes. Inaugurated in the early 2020s, the combined project placed Liaigre’s more restrained, neo-classical and loft-influenced approach alongside Garcia’s theatrical original. Costes is presented as a privately held Paris hospitality brand with hotel, restaurant, music, spa and candle activities. Its fragrance identity began when Jean-Louis Costes commissioned Olivia Giacobetti to replace an unsuitable hotel smell. Brown became the hotel’s exclusive fragrance and signature scent, later extending into take-home fragrance and candles sold internationally.