Perfume has always been more than mere fragrance to me—it became the invisible thread connecting me to a rich family legacy that I never knew existed until my grandmother's death changed everything. My fascination with fragrance didn't begin in childhood surrounded by family stories, but rather emerged from the pages of an unfinished manuscript and months of painstaking research that revealed an extraordinary heritage spanning nearly two centuries.
When my grandmother passed away, I discovered she had been quietly writing a book about her father, Léo FINK—a man I had never met, whose remarkable story had somehow been lost. As I read her incomplete chapter, I learned that this ancestor I'd never heard of was the founder of Forvil, and a creative visionary.
Taking up my grandmother's research became an obsession. Through archives, old advertisements, and records, I pieced together the golden age of FORVIL in the 1930s, discovering that by 1938, our family brand boasted an extraordinary 211 references—45 perfumes, 34 colognes, powders, beauty milks, and creams. Each discovery felt like archaeological work, unearthing not just products but pieces of my own identity I never knew were missing.
The research revealed my great-aunt Lydia FINK, who I knew well and saw annually had taken control in 1945 and steered the company toward hair care innovation. I found the 1957 Paris Match advertisement for "Poème" brillantine—tangible proof that my ancestors had created cultural moments, scents that graced prestigious magazine pages and touched lives across France. These weren't just family stories; they were documented history I was uncovering one archival search at a time.
Learning about FORVIL's gradual decline between 1966 and 1969 felt personal, even though I had no lived connection to it. Through my research, I had become emotionally invested in this legacy that was simultaneously mine and foreign.
My fascination with perfume stems from this unique experience of archaeological discovery—of literally reconstructing my family's olfactory legacy from fragments and forgotten documents. Scents now carries the weight of this research, the knowledge that fragrance is storytelling in its purest form, carrying the DNA of creators across generations even when their stories have been temporarily lost.
Finishing my grandmother's book and uncovering the FORVIL story taught me that perfume isn't just about immediate sensory pleasure—it's about the eternal human desire to capture and preserve beauty in its most intangible form. This is why perfume fascinates me: it represents the possibility that something beautiful can endure, be rediscovered, and inspire new generations, even when the thread seems completely broken.