Fragrance house

Paloma Picasso

Paloma Picasso’s fragrance line launched in 1984 in partnership with L’Oréal. Its namesake had developed a creative practice in costume design and jewelry, later designing for Yves Saint Laurent and Zolotas before joining Tiffany’s design story in 1979–1980. After Pablo Picasso’s death in 1973, she paused jewelry design to catalogue his estate and help establish the Musée Picasso in Paris. That same year as the fragrance launch, Warner Communications sold Warner Cosmetics, whose brands included Paloma Picasso, to the French cosmetics firm Cosmair. The brand’s visual identity reflects Picasso’s bold color palettes, geometric forms, and graffiti-inspired shapes, with red, black, and gold recurring in its fragrance packaging. Mon Parfum, created in 1984 with perfumer Francis Bocris, is a chypre fragrance identified as a signature scent. In 1992, Picasso launched Minotaure, a men’s fragrance created by Michel Almairac; several months later, it received the first men’s award from the Fragrance Foundation France at the organization’s inaugural French awards in 1993.