Two torsos in a tin can — a corset and a sailor stripe that turned a couturier’s provocations into one of the most recognisable fragrance lines of the 1990s.
Overview
Jean Paul Gaultier is a Paris fashion house whose fragrance line began in 1993 and rests on two bottles. Classique (1993) is a corseted torso and Le Male (1995) is a torso in a sailor stripe. Both are sold in an aluminium can.
The fragrances were made under licence by Shiseido’s Beauté Prestige International until the end of 2015. Since 1 January 2016 they have belonged to Puig, the Spanish group that also owns the fashion house. Every Jean Paul Gaultier fragrance I track is in the Catalog.
Founding and early history
Jean Paul Gaultier showed his first collection under his own name in 1976 and founded his label in 1982. The fragrance databases date the house from the earlier year, which is why both appear in print.
The first fragrance arrived in 1993 as Jean Paul Gaultier Eau de Parfum, composed by Jacques Cavallier. Wikipedia records that it was renamed Classique in 1995. Its bottle is a torso in a corset, routinely compared with the corset Gaultier designed for Madonna’s 1990 Blond Ambition tour.
Le Male followed in 1995 as its counterpart. It was composed by Francis Kurkdjian, then twenty-six and two years out of perfumery school, and it became the larger success of the two.
The can was the designer’s own motif, used in his work since 1980. Gaultier called it a provocation, and Wikipedia reports that some perfume shops at first refused to stock it.
House style
The house style is sweet, warm and loud, carried by a bottle that is a figure rather than a flask. Almost every pillar sits on vanilla, tonka bean and amber.
Le Male is the type case. It sets mint and lavender over orange blossom and a heavy vanilla base. The result is usually classed as an oriental fougère. Kurkdjian has linked its lavender accord to the smell of 1950s barbershops.
Classique works the same register from the other side: rose and rum on top, then narcissus and orchid, then vanilla and amber.
The second habit of the house is the flanker. Summer editions, collector cans and stronger concentrations of the two pillars have appeared almost every year since the late 1990s, and the newer lines follow the same pattern.
Key fragrances
Perfumers
Two perfumers define the house. Francis Kurkdjian wrote Le Male and then most of what followed for twenty years: Gaultier², Fleur du Male, Ma Dame (2008) and Ultra Male.
Since the move to Puig the recurring name is Quentin Bisch of Givaudan. He is credited on La Belle, Le Beau and Le Male Le Parfum. Tendance Parfums also credits him with Le Male Elixir and Scandal Pour Homme.
Around them the list is long. Jacques Cavallier wrote Classique. Fragrantica’s house page names many more, among them Daphné Bugey, Sonia Constant and Annick Menardo.
Ownership and business history
The fragrances began as a licence. Beauté Prestige International, the Paris subsidiary of Shiseido, made and distributed them from the first launch. Wikipedia dates the licence itself from 1991.
The fashion house changed hands separately. Hermès bought 35 percent in 1999 and later raised its holding to 45 percent. On 3 May 2011 Puig bought that entire stake for €16 million, together with a further stake from the designer, and became majority owner.
The licence stayed with Shiseido and was due to run until 30 June 2016. In February 2015 Puig opened talks to buy it out early. Cosmetics Business reported the price under discussion as €70 million plus up to €20 million in compensation. Wikipedia gives the final figures as $79.2 million and $22.6 million.
Puig took over on 1 January 2016, and fashion and fragrance have had a single owner since.
I chart who makes and licenses this house’s fragrances on the Fragrance License Map.
Present position
Jean Paul Gaultier today is a Puig brand built on a handful of fragrance lines and their many flankers. Classique and Le Male remain the centre, joined by La Belle and Le Beau, then Scandal and Gaultier Divine. Fragrantica also lists a 2026 collection named Les Ateliers Gaultier.
The designer retired from the runway in January 2020, and guest designers led the couture for the next five years. In April 2025 Puig named Duran Lantink permanent creative director, the first successor since the label was founded.
Historical assessment
I count Le Male among the important fragrances of the 1990s. It took the barbershop fougère and made it sweet, and a great deal of what has sold since follows from that decision. The bottle gets the attention, but the composition earned the place.
The rest of the record is narrower. Classique is a good fragrance in a great bottle. Beyond the two pillars the house has mostly restated them in stronger and sweeter forms, and the Puig years have been commercially sharp rather than inventive. I think both things are true: the foundation is historic, and the building on top of it is repetition.
From the Fragrance Archive
My profiles of individual Jean Paul Gaultier fragrances.