François Coty

Corsican-born perfumer who trained in Grasse, the center of French perfumery, before founding his Paris fragrance house in 1904.

François Coty (1874-1934), born Joseph Marie François Spoturno in Ajaccio, Corsica, founded Coty in Paris in 1904. After training in Grasse, he launched La Rose Jacqueminot, then built a business around combining natural essences with newer synthetic materials, pricing fragrance for a wider middle-class audience, and treating the bottle as part of the product. He commissioned bottles from René Lalique, created Chypre in 1917 and L'Aimant in 1927, and expanded into cosmetics, including Air Spun face powder. Coty became one of France's richest men in the 1920s, though his later life was marked by political and financial turmoil. François Coty was born in 1874.