Fragrance house

Nez a Nez

Established in 2005 by Christa Patout and Stéphane Humbert Lucas, Nez à Nez has roots in Grasse and was based in Paris. The brand grew from its founders’ involvement with art: Humbert Lucas was a painter drawn to fragrance, while Patout came from a family connected to professional perfumery. Its creative identity linked perfume with literature, painting and music, treating scent as an artistic and emotional form of expression rather than following fixed mainstream conventions. Humbert Lucas’s synaesthetic association of colours with smells also shaped the story surrounding the house. Nez à Nez first developed a broad range of scents before focusing on approximately ten eaux de parfum, forming a compact, concept-led collection whose names and themes drew on art, literature and wordplay. Marron Chic, conceived from Patout’s imagination around an iris-and-cacao idea, was identified in 2013 as the brand’s bestseller.