Fragrance house

Jean-Charles de Castelbajac

Jean-Charles de Castelbajac began his creative career in 1968 with his mother through Ko & Co and founded the Jean-Charles de Castelbajac house in 1978. Its early identity drew on repurposed materials, including a boarding-school blanket coat and garments made with mops, while its work from the 1980s brought fashion into dialogue with artists, musicians, photographers and visual artists. The house’s creative milestones include exhibitions at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in 1986, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in 2006 and Paris’s Musée Galliera in 2007, as well as a 3,700-square-metre mural for Paris Orly Airport in 2015. Primary colors, pop-art references, childhood imagery and angels became recurring elements of its visual language. Castelbajac left the house in 2016; Fashion Group Hyungji acquired its fashion arm that year and the global trademark for its beauty offer in 2019, while Sodip retained the fragrance licence. The label entered fragrance with Première, documented as a 1981 creation. In 2024, Castelbajac designed liturgical garments for Notre-Dame’s reopening, including work for approximately 700 celebrants.