Violette (original)(1900)

A violet soliflore rounding out Molinard's early single-flower catalog, opening on bergamot, centering on a violet heart, and closing on a base of musk, iris, and woods, the iris addition here giving it a slightly powdery, rooty depth beyond the simpler rose and jasmine soliflores the house had released decades earlier. Violet was an especially fashionable note at the turn of the 20th century, its association with modesty and femininity making it a favorite of the Belle Epoque, and its scent, difficult and expensive to extract naturally via violet leaf absolute, was often approximated or extended using the newly available synthetic ionones. Pairing violet with iris, as this composition does, was a natural pairing since both share a similar powdery, slightly cool character, iris rhizome (orris) requiring years of aging before it could be used in perfumery at all. Molinard's choice to release a violet soliflore at exactly the moment ionones were transforming how perfumers could work with the note places this fragrance at a genuine turning point in violet's perfumery history. It stands as the last of the house's turn-of-the-century soliflore trilogy alongside its rose and jasmine predecessors.