Parterre have very generously offered our readers an EXCLUSIVE 20% off discount – scroll down to find out about this incredible (and groundbreaking) British niche perfumery house, and how to claim your scented surprise; because there’s a way to make this EXTRA special and save up to 45%…!
When David and Julia Bridger decided to combine the ruling passions of their lives – art, gardens, travel and perfume – and gather a team of experts (literally) in their field, they set in motion a series of events that is poised to change the face of British fragrance forever. And put Parterre on the map.
There’s a lot to be said for following your nose on holiday – because you really do never know where serendipity might lead you.
In 2014, the Bridgers were motoring around the South of France, when Julia recalled – with affection – visiting the hillside town of Grasse, as a child. ‘I remembered the whole town smelling of roses,’ she recalls. They steered their car in the direction of the hillside town and made a bee-line for one of Grasse’s perfume museums. Later, walking through the museum’s garden – a-bloom with fragrant flowers – a seed was sown.
‘We thought: maybe this is something we could do ourselves…’
David’s family had been in farming for almost 400 years, so horticulture runs in his veins – even though most of his career had been spent in marketing. Julia, meanwhile, had wide experience in advertising, going on to run a luxury villa travel company. Together, the pair (at that point based in Hampshire) began looking around for a farm of their own to buy, before stumbling across the ‘sleeping beauty’ of Keyneston Mill. It had fields – 50 acres of them. A run-down mill house and some crumbling outbuildings. An overgrown orchard. But lots and lots of potential not only to fulfill their dream of actually growing and distilling perfume ingredients right there, in the Dorset countryside – but to show visitors how it’s done, as they’d so enjoyed in Grasse.
Embracing the concept of ‘from seed to bottle’, with Parterre, the Bridgers not only set out to to grow, harvest and distil many of their own ingredients – but they also had a longing to try growing crops that had never before been grown on British soil. Even including – astonishingly – vetiver. For Julia and David, this is about ‘reinventing perfumery by taking it back to its roots.’ Parterre‘s motto: ‘Where creative botany meets artistry and the wild spirit of adventure.’
The planting now expands into surrounding fields, with crop-scale ingredients producing incredible quality yields, which are then hand-blended by Jacques Chabert – one of the world’s leading perfumers, who works in Grasse alongside his daughter, Elsa Chabert, while his elder and equally talented perfumer daughter, Carla Chabert, runs their Paris laboratory. Meanwhile, Parterre’s creative team is headed up by Virginie Daniau, President of the British Society of Perfumers (BSP), who first introduced Jacques to Keynestone Mill’s owners.
This adventure in botany has taken over four years – but the vision has now become reality. Over 2,000 aromatic plants and flowers are now being grown just 20 minutes from Poole – including rose geranium (more of which anon), melissa, hyssop, chamomile, angelica, artemisia, clary sage, yarrow, bergamot mint and red thyme. Many of them have made it into the limited edition, numbered flacons of Parterre fragrance now on sale at spiffy Piccadilly department store Fortnum & Mason, as well as via their own website.
‘Our mission is to grow the most unusual plants we can source,’ explains Julia. ‘Each plant is then trialled, harvested and distilled on site – and this process captures the very essence of each aromatic variety.’
For Julia and David, this is about ‘reinventing perfumery by taking it back to its roots.’ Parterre‘s motto: ‘Where creative botany meets artistry and the wild spirit of adventure.’
Now you can take advantage of a fantastic 20% discount when you shop on parterrefragrances.com – simply enter the code PERFSOC20 when prompted at checkout.
Psst! It just so happens that Parterre are showcasing their fabulous home-grown vetiver scent, The Root of All Goodness, by already having discounted the 70ml & 100ml bottles by up to 25% off on their site. With our exclusive code used at checkout, it takes an extra 20% off that price, meaning Perfume Society readers will actually get 45% off The Root of All Goodness when purchasing the larger size bottles!
Those craving warmth should look no further than this golden elixir, an evocative blend of all things mellow and radiant. Even the top notes of bergamot and lemon have been enriched with the tingle of ginger, softly melding into the hazy heart of camphorous hyssop and herbaceous clary sage. The vetiver feels like a cloak of comfort – a grounding scent to help you stride forth with confidence in to the year ahead.
With the change of seasons (and all of us in desperate need of a treat), the code will be valid for THREE MONTHS. So what better time to explore these exquisite scents for yourself (and stock up on Christmas presents, perhaps…?
