Fragrance house

Worth

Worth was established in Paris in 1858 by Charles Frederick Worth and Otto Gustav Bobergh. Charles Frederick Worth’s design house helped establish practices associated with modern haute couture, including presenting designs on live models for clients to select and have tailored. After his death in 1895, the house passed to his sons Gaston-Lucien and Jean-Philippe and continued as a multigenerational family business until great-grandson Jean-Charles retired in 1952; the historic house had ceased operating by 1956. Worth’s fragrance history began in 1924, in work involving perfumer Maurice Blanchet and glassmaker René Lalique. In the late-1990s revival, Dilesh Mehta acquired the fragrance business, while Martin McCarthy acquired the clothing business; Mehta unified the fragrance and clothing rights in 2005. The revived house later drew on its historical archive: in 2011, designer Giovanni Bedin reworked early Worth silhouettes, embellishments, and fabrics in a contemporary treatment. Worth’s public identity remains tied to its legacy as a historic Paris couture house. Its fragrance legacy is especially associated with Je Reviens, a classic floral fragrance introduced in 1932.