L'Air du Temps(1948)

Created by Francis Fabron for Nina Ricci, L'Air du Temps, The Spirit of the Times, opens on bergamot and carnation, moves through a heart of gardenia, jasmine, and rose, and closes on sandalwood, musk, and vetiver. Released just three years after the end of the Second World War, its name and gentle, hopeful character were widely understood as reflecting the postwar longing for peace, a theme reinforced by its famous Lalique bottle topped with two doves in flight. The carnation-spiced floral heart gives it a distinctive warmth distinguishing it from the sharper aldehydic and green florals many contemporaries were releasing in the same years. L'Air du Temps became one of the best-selling fragrances of the 20th century and remains Nina Ricci's most historically significant and enduring creation, still produced today more than seventy-five years after its release.