L'Occitane and DSM-Firmenich give a scent to the Palais des Papes: story of Les Pierres du Palais

What might a seven-century-old palace smell like? The question seems crazy, and yet two houses joined their know-how to answer it. L'Occitane en Provence, together with the composition house DSM-Firmenich, has just given a scent to the Palais des Papes of Avignon. The result is called Les Pierres du Palais, a home fragrance that seeks to bottle the warm stone, the Mistral and the gardens of the largest Gothic palace in Europe. For the child of Provence that I am, this project has a particular resonance. Analysis.

Two houses to capture the soul of a place

The initial idea is dizzying. How do you translate into scent not a flower or a material, but an entire building, an atmosphere, seven centuries of history? To meet this challenge, the creation was carried out with many hands. On the heritage side, Stéphanie Brémond, general delegate of the endowment fund of the Palais des Papes, guided the project and conveyed the soul of the place. On the brand side, L'Occitane en Provence brought its Provençal culture. And on the composition side, perfumer Bérénice Watteau, from the house DSM-Firmenich, one of the world’s leading names in perfume creation, held the olfactory pen.

The monument deserved such mobilization. The Palais des Papes is not a place like any other. Built in the 14th century when the papacy settled in Avignon, it is the largest Gothic palace in Europe, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1995, and one of the most visited sites in France. Inventing an olfactory signature for it is to extend the visit beyond sight, to offer a souvenir that you take away and can relight at home.

A mineral and vegetal composition

Bérénice Watteau’s approach is fascinating: to compose a perfume as one would lay out an architecture, with structure and volumes. The fragrance intends to be both mineral and vegetal, like the monument and its gardens.

Mineral first, because everything begins with stone. The perfumer sought to reproduce that very particular smell of ochre stone warmed by the sun, that dry and luminous rock of the South, joined by an incense note that summons the sacred memory of the place, its centuries of liturgy. Vegetal next, with a heart that draws from the patiently restored medieval gardens of the Palace. You breathe Atlas cedar, a fresh sap, damp mosses, a touch of mint, and the aromatic herbs that grow today between the walls. And hovering over everything, the spirit of the Mistral, that wind that rushes through the galleries and is an integral part of Avignon’s identity. The result composes a true olfactory walk, from the coolness of the great stone halls to the light of the gardens.

Attention to detail extends to the bottle, whose visual identity was entrusted to photographer Romain Laprade, who chose to depict a pointed arch vault of the Palace. Everything, from the liquid to the image, tells the same building.

Fifty years of Provence, ten years of patronage

This perfume is not an isolated launch; it is the culmination of two converging stories. First, that of a partnership. Since 2012, L'Occitane, the endowment fund of the Palais des Papes and Avignon Tourisme have worked together on the restoration and promotion of the monument. Les Pierres du Palais celebrates a decade of this cultural patronage, true to an ambition summed up by Stéphanie Brémond: to reveal the Palais des Papes without ever denaturing it.