Prince Matchabelli
Encyclopedia
Perfume
Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and/or aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, animals, objects, and living spaces "a pleasant scent"...
line. It was first designed by Prince Georges V. Matchabelli
Georges V. Matchabelli
Prince Georges V. Matchabelli or Giorgi Machabeli was a Georgian prince and diplomat, who fled Soviet Georgia and immigrated to the United States after the 1921 Bolshevik takeover of Georgia....
who was an amateur chemist. Georges Matchabelli was a Georgian
Georgians
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
prince and Georgian
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
ambassador to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, but fled the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and immigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
after the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
. In New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
he and his wife, Princess Norina Matchabelli (an actress whose stage name was Maria Carmi), opened a small antiques shop Le Rouge et le Noir at 545 Madison Avenue. The name came from Stendhal
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
's novel of that name, which they interpreted as the red for the aristocracy for him and black for the religious (The Miracle
The Miracle (play)
The Miracle was a 1911 play written by Karl Vollmöller and directed by Max Reinhardt, from which three movie versions were later adapted. The play first appeared as a spectacle-pantomime in Germany in 1911....
, a famous religious play in which Norina had starred). (Stendhal's intepretation of the names was somewhat different: the only two choices open to his hero, Julien Sorel, a poor man for career glory and advancement: red for military and black for clergy.) They later established the Prince Matchabelli Perfume Company in 1926. Perfumes were personally blended for clients by Prince Matchabelli. The first three perfumes were Princess Norina, Queen of Georgia and Ave Maria. The company became known for the many color-coded, crown-shaped bottles designed by Norina after the Matchabelli crown and introduced in 1928 with labels on the underside.
In 1936 Princess Matchabellie sold the company to perfume manufacturer Saul Ganz for $250,000. Ganz then named his son Paul H. Ganz president of the company. (The couple divorced in 1933 and Georges died in 1935.) Ganz remained as president until the company was sold in the late 1940s to the Vicks Chemical Company
Vicks
Vicks is a line of over-the-counter medications owned by the American company Procter & Gamble. Vicks manufactures NyQuil and its sister medication, DayQuil. The Vicks brand also produces Formula 44 cough medicines, cough drops, VapoRub, and a number of inhaled breathing treatments...
. In 1958, Prince Matchabelli became a division of Chesebrough–Pond's
Chesebrough Manufacturing Company
Chesebrough Manufacturing Company was an oil business which produced petroleum jelly or vaseline, which was marketed with the brand name Luxor. It was founded in 1859. Robert Augustus Chesebrough, a chemist who started the company, was interested in marketing oil products for medicinal needs. He...
, a consumer products conglomerate. In 1987, Chesebrough–Ponds was acquired by Anglo
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
company Unilever
Unilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
. As of 1986 the division had annual domestic sales of about $140 million, according to company officials. In 1993 the Chesebrough-Ponds division of Unilever sold the Prince Matchabelli brands to Parfums de Coeur.
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