Chloé

Chloé is a French luxury house founded in Paris in 1952 by Gaby Aghion, with Jacques Lenoir joining the following year [5]. Aghion built it as one of the first prêt-à-porter, or ready-to-wear, houses — selling refined collections off the rack at a time when Parisian fashion still revolved around made-to-measure couture. The brand's beauty presence rests on its fragrances, which first appeared in the 1970s and have grown into a portfolio of floral perfumes sold worldwide. The house remains active: its most recent major beauty release, Chloé L'Eau de Parfum Intense, arrived in 2024.

Within the wider Chloé business — which also covers clothing and leather goods — the perfume line is the part most relevant to beauty retail. It is produced under licence rather than in-house, and trades on what the company and trade press describe as a strongly French, fashion-rooted identity.

Gaby Aghion established Chloé in 1952, and Jacques Lenoir came on board in 1953 to help run the business. According to the company, the house was conceived as "one of the first luxury ready-to-wear houses," presenting an alternative to couture's bespoke model [2]. Chloé held its first runway show in 1958 and opened its debut Paris boutique in 1972, several years before fragrance entered the picture.

The label became closely linked to the designers who shaped it. Karl Lagerfeld led the studio across two long stretches between 1964 and 1997, followed by names including Stella McCartney, Phoebe Philo and Gabriela Hearst. This fashion lineage is the backdrop against which the perfumes were later positioned.

The fashion house and its fragrance line have separate starting points. Chloé itself dates to 1952, while the first perfume came later — and the sources disagree on exactly when. The brand's own history page and two perfume editorials place the debut scent, simply called Chloé, in 1975, the year described by the company as the moment "the floral, feminine scent becomes one of the most popular scents of its time" [2]. Wikipedia instead records a first fragrance, "Chloé Classique," in 1973 [5]. The 1975 date is the one carried by the house and the specialist press.

A turning point for the modern fragrance business came in 2008 with the launch of Chloé Eau de Parfum, the scent now treated as the brand's signature. Created by perfumer Michel Almairac and built around a rose oxide, it became, in the words of trade publication WWD, "the brand's bestselling fragrance" [6]. Later additions broadened the range, among them Nomade in 2018.

Chloé belongs to Compagnie Financière Richemont SA, the Swiss luxury group whose stable also includes Cartier, Dunhill and Montblanc [5]. Richemont owns the house itself; the fragrances, by contrast, are operated under a separate licensing arrangement.

That licence sits with Coty. The perfume rights passed to Coty in 2005, when it bought Unilever Cosmetics International, and the business is now managed through the company's Coty Prestige division [5][6]. The distinction matters: Richemont owns the brand, while Coty develops, makes and distributes its scents under agreement rather than as the brand's proprietor.

Chloé frames its fragrances around what it calls "the Chloé woman's free spirit and timeless elegance," a free-spirited, feminine register tied closely to the fashion house. The perfume portfolio is pitched at the upper end of the market. WWD characterised it as a "premium-plus universe" with "a very strong fashion DNA and a very strong French DNA," language echoing the brand's own emphasis on its Parisian roots [6].

Beyond product, the company has adopted a social-purpose framing. Since April 2023 it has operated as a Société à Mission, a French legal status for purpose-driven companies, under the stated line "Women Forward. For a fairer future" [3]. Its declared engagement spans four pillars — people, sourcing, communities and products — with a focus on gender equality and inclusion.

The fragrance offer is organised into several lines, led by Chloé Signature alongside Atelier des Fleurs, Nomade and Love Story. The 2008 Chloé Eau de Parfum anchors the Signature family and remains the bestseller, with rose at its heart. The range leans floral throughout, spanning eau de parfum and eau de toilette concentrations.

The most recent flagship is Chloé L'Eau de Parfum Intense, launched in 2024 and described by the company as "a strong revisit of the Chloé signature scent" — its largest fragrance launch since 2008 [6]. Almairac returned for the reformulation, working with his son Romain. In line with a broader move toward reusable packaging, the new bottle is refillable and keeps the signature's grosgrain-ribbon detailing [6].

Chloé holds B Corp certification, a third-party standard for verified social and environmental performance. It first certified in October 2021 and was recertified in October 2024 with what the company reports as a higher score [3]. Alongside the Société à Mission status adopted in 2023, the house has set out environmental targets that apply across its categories, including a 30% cut in CO2-equivalent emissions per product by 2025 against a 2019 baseline and a reduction in packaging weight [4]. Since 2021 it says it no longer destroys unsold raw materials or finished products, reusing, recycling or donating them instead. These commitments are house-wide rather than specific to the perfume line.

Chloé is an active global luxury house owned by Richemont, with its fragrance line running under Coty's licence. Its most recent notable beauty activity was the 2024 launch of Chloé L'Eau de Parfum Intense, reported by WWD that August, alongside its B Corp recertification the same year.