PROFILES

Julien Foucher—a Parisian married to a woman from Nice and father of two—moved close to his in-laws on the Côte d’Azur in 2017, when he bought a local perfume company, Prestige de Menton.  Up until then, he had been a marketing consultant in Geneva. Hankering to move to the South of France with his family, Julien Foucher chanced upon a rare gem to take over: a human-sized artisan business located in Menton designing its quality products.  Bingo! He could already see the potential, even though it would take a year of negotiation and handing over to get the deal done. The previous owner only wanted to hand over his gem to a reliable person! Artisan-perfumer Prestige de Menton amassed its strengths a long time ago. Julien Foucher will be taking over long-standing suppliers, an “old-fashioned” savoir-faire that he will optimise to create the brand’s contemporary DNA and an entire workforce. As a first step, he modernised the historic Menton boutique, giving it a vintage feel in the style of a retro and reassuring “apothecary’s house” where the winning ranges of citrus-based fragrance are displayed. He revamped the outdated website too. Then he decided to update Eau de Menton (the timeless eau de parfum created in 1947) with a range of 8 variations: Eau de Menton L’Originale, L’Absolue, Citron Vert, Méditerranée, Néroli... new Eaux Fraîches that will soon be diffusing the perfumer’s aura to 50 points of sale—concept stores and niche fragrance counters. “Being found at Au Bon Marché or Fleux in Paris is the apotheosis!” he says. “I wanted to put sunshine in the bottle by creating new iodised and lemony Eaux Fraîches!  A mixed and modern range of perfumes that identify with the Côte d’Azur. It’s the combination of this olfactory heritage that sparkles with local citrus zest, shoreline scents, warm seaside memories...” Since then, Julien Foucher has also founded Rivae, a line of fragrances composed of olfactory stopovers around Nice.

By Laurence Jacquet