Loved by Tom Ford, Galliano and Lagerfeld: The Diptyque scented candle turns 60

2023-07-09 14:31:43
HomeStyleLoved by Tom Ford, Galliano and Lagerfeld: The Diptyque scented candle turns 60

The fashion world’s nose flatterer first flickered in 1963: the Dipyque candle celebrates its 60th birthday. It has its origins in a Paris corner shop. Our columnist serenades her.

Peter Kempe

The herbarium of painter and Diptyque founder Desmond Knox LeetDiptyque

Even in the Renaissance people wanted rooms to smell good. At that time, one still had to contend with sometimes catastrophic hygienic conditions. This was remedied by perforated vessels with fragrant potpourris of flowers and herbs, this method was kept in the baroque period. Today, this is taken over by the ubiquitous scented candle, which is available in all price categories from discounter models to designer creations.

But watch out, you should rather dig a little deeper into your pocket and stick to the tried and tested with high wax quality and long burning time. That’s why you can hardly avoid the scented candles from Diptyque. In addition to candles, there are now also room fragrances, perfumes and soaps – the company, which was founded more than sixty years ago, has long been a classic among fragrance lovers. The range now includes over fifty(!) different candle scents. They burn for seventy hours without being intrusive or even causing a headache – like some of their all-too-cheap imitators, unfortunately.

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It smelled like it in Tom Ford’s shows

Whether the smoky “Feu de Bois” (forest fire) in winter, “Mimosa” or “Figuier” (fig tree) in summer, the Odeurs of Diptyque let you travel through all continents and moods. The consistency of the wax and the fragrances are among the best in the world. It is therefore not surprising that there is almost no issue of magazines such as World of Interiors or AD Architectural Digest in which the graphic candle label cannot be found somewhere in an apartment. Either in New York, Paris or Berlin.

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The founders of Diptyque meet by chance: Yves Coueslant, Christiane Montadre and Desmond Knox-Leet (from left). Montadre was a Fine Arts graduate when she met the painter Knox-Leet. They were already designing fabric and wallpaper patterns together when they were introduced to Yves Coueslant. The rest is fragrant history.Diptyque

In the mid-1990s, Diptyque started its triumphal march around the world, because style stars of the time like Tom Ford at Gucci scented their fashion shows with the candles and Karl Lagerfeld constantly gave them out as gifts. In addition to the fragrance, the conical glasses with the black and white labels are also so decorative that even people who detest everything opulent sing the praises of the design. John Galliano even created his own candle for the house, made entirely of black wax. At the millennium this was still a novelty.

Vreeland’s favourite: Rigaud pine wax

The three aesthetes and Diptyque founders Christiane Gautrot, Desmond Knox-Leet and Yves Coueslant originally had the idea of ​​opening a “bazaar”. In the Paris shop you should be able to find all sorts of unexpected things for the apartment. Since their roots lay in architecture and textile design, they initially only sold home items they had brought back from their travels, as well as upholstery fabrics they had designed themselves. The fabrics in particular were well received in Paris, because the designs were based on “Arts & Crafts”, which was becoming fashionable again at the time, and the look of the English Bloomsbury group. The French admired the arrangements and decorations of the company founders – and soon they no longer just bought textiles, but also the first three scented candles that Diptyque created in 1963. The bestselling trio grew year after year, making the enchanting corner shop at 34 Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris a place of pilgrimage for aesthetes.

The oval Dyptique logo goes back to the textile origins of the brand. The vignette, which is still used today, was created from a pattern. diptyque

By the way: If you want something even more elitist and legendary, you should light a candle from Rigaud. However, the fragrances of this brand are much more incisive than those of Diptyque and require a confident personality. Diana Vreeland, the legendary fashion journalist, had the dark green pine-scented version burning at Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue as early as 1959. You can consider these candles with extra soft wax as the ancestors of their kind. What Mrs. Vreeland didn’t tell her readers: that not only do these candles smell good, but that her husband Reed was a partner in the company. The clever style icon killed two birds with one stone and not only scented the luxury apartments on Fifth Avenue, but also flushed money into the family coffers.