Jean Madar

Jean Madar discovered the fragrance industry's exceptional margins during a business school lecture in Paris in 1982, while he was a 24-year-old student with family connections to the beauty industry. His father had founded a small fragrance distribution company, and Madar had absorbed the mechanics of the trade from childhood. Madar's decision to co-found Interparfums was driven by the insight that licensing established fashion brands for fragrance production would generate higher returns than building brands from scratch, and his personal commitment to product quality—evidenced by his refusal to wear fragrances himself to keep his smelling palate clear—has shaped the company's creative culture.

Inter Parfums possesses an entrepreneurial, transatlantic founding story, rooted in the ambition of two French friends who recognized a lucrative, entirely unexploited niche in the global mass-market fragrance industry. The company was founded in 1982 by Jean Madar and Philippe Benacin. The two ambitious entrepreneurs met while studying at the prestigious ESSEC Business School in Paris. Following graduation, they possessed a foundational observation regarding the fragrance industry: the prestigious luxury brands (like Dior or Chanel) dominated the high-end department stores, but the 'mass-market' (drugstores and supermarkets) was flooded with terrible, low-quality perfumes. They founded Inter Parfums with a specific vision: to produce high-quality, beautifully packaged fragrances, but sell them at accessible, mass-market prices. To execute this strategy, they split the global market. Jean Madar moved to New York City to manage the American operations (Inter Parfums, Inc.), while Philippe Benacin remained in Paris to operate the prestigious European division (Interparfums SA). Their foundational masterstroke occurred in the 1990s when they shifted their corporate strategy. Recognizing that creating independent fragrance brands from scratch was difficult and expensive, they pivoted into the lucrative licensing model. They signed a successful exclusive licensing agreement with the British luxury brand Burberry (which they operated until Burberry eventually bought the rights back in 2012). This pivot proved that their specialized design and distribution capabilities could monetize existing fashion brands, establishing the focused, profitable corporate architecture that still defines the company today.