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Introducing a scent that recalls a 120-year-old archival blend might seem like a risk in today’s fast-moving fragrance landscape — one where brands are increasingly relying on forward-looking AI formulations, TikTok-driven trends and ever-accelerating product cycles to get ahead.
Yet, beauty conglomerate Coty is making a calculated bet that its deep perfume heritage can offer a point of difference in a saturated and increasingly commoditised market.
On Monday, the company unveils Ambre Antique, a recreation of the scent first introduced by Coty in 1905. The fragrance is the latest addition to Infiniment Coty Paris, the prestige fragrance line launched in 2024 under Coty CEO Sue Nabi and creative partner Nicolas Vu.
With this release, Coty is not only tapping into current scent trends (including vanilla, amber and other gourmand accords), but also, more significantly, into the growing consumer appetite for sentimentality and vintage fragrances. “Each fragrance has a story,” says Marie Ousmane-Merlin, global VP of marketing at Coty. “And if you circle back to antique or vintage fragrances, that emotional connection is even stronger. It reminds consumers of their mothers, grandmothers, and so there is this comfort and authenticity that people are searching for in scent today.”
Younger consumers are pushing back against the “polished sameness” of mass-market launches and dupe culture, says Nabi. Vintage fragrances and archival blends evoke personal memories, uniqueness and nostalgia — repelling the modern, saturated market.
Lisa Payne, head of beauty trends at intelligence firm Stylus, sees the revival of vintage fragrances as part of a broader market shift. “Perfume brand archives are being introduced in a bid to celebrate a more authentic time,” she explains. “It taps into the wider Gen Z nostalgia kick for times they’ve never experienced, such as the ’90s or their grandmother’s fragrances.” Payne adds that this trend also acts as a counterpoint to modern ‘blanding’. “The sameness of today’s fragrance hits follows the same prescriptive juices. Now, the demand from younger consumers is for something different.”
Payne points to brands like Officine Universelle Buly 1903 and Cologne Cotton as early adopters in the space. Officine Universelle Buly 1903 revives 19th century water-based perfume recipes from its original apothecary archives, offering scent collections like Eaux Triples that reflect historic French perfumery traditions. Cologne Cotton brought back its archived colognes in 2024, from the 1990s, including classic lavender, citrus and neroli formulations, while reinstating the original illustrative packaging that defined its initial brand identity.
By unlocking its archive and creating Ambre Antique entirely in-house (from concept to final formula), the launch also marks a rare example of a fully integrated, prestige fragrance production for the group. Unlike Coty’s other luxury licenses, including Gucci, Chloé and Burberry, the Infiniment Coty Paris line represents the company’s proprietary innovation engine. “We’re back to being a true fragrance creator,” says Ousmane-Merlin. “That’s rare today.”
This shift is as much about control as it is about creativity. By owning every step, from the formula and design to production, Coty can better defend against the commoditisation of luxury fragrance and the proliferation of dupes that threaten category margins. Nabi has regularly addressed this dynamic with investors, pointing to the increasing pressure that dupe culture places on the originality and performance of Coty’s broader fragrance portfolio. Group revenues fell 2 per cent in fiscal 2025 and 9 per cent in the fourth quarter, Coty said in August, but fragrance was a profitable category that Nabi was bullish on. “A lot of consumers today are continuing to buy fragrances at every price level,” she told investors at the time.
Ambre Antique represents both a strategic and symbolic play: a convergence of past and future that reinforces Coty’s ambition to lean into nostalgia while elevating its own innovation credibility.
As for the modern version’s formulation, Coty’s technical perfume director Dominique Vernaz says the update remains remarkably faithful to the original. “With today’s constraints, it wasn’t difficult to recreate,” he explains. “In fact, we only had to replace animal-derived ingredients. Otherwise, the structure stayed true.” The recreated Ambre Antique even includes a reconstruction of Ambréine S, a fragrance note exclusive to Coty and first used by the company in 1905.
In a category shaped by fast turnover, trend-driven development and performance pressures, Coty’s strategy is clear: use heritage not only as a storytelling tool, but as an engine for innovation and long-term brand equity.
Still, anchoring innovation in history is a nuanced strategy that requires considered navigation from the beauty conglomerate. In a market shaped by rapid turnover, algorithm-led launches and consumers’ love of accessible, trend-powered scents, centring a 120-year-old formula presents a deliberate challenge to the pace and priorities of perfumes in the market.
Here, Nabi unpacks the strategic thinking behind Ambre Antique and why Coty believes haute parfumerie’s future may lie in its past.
Vogue: Why bring back Ambre Antique now, and how did you approach reintroducing it to today’s fragrance audience?
In reviving Ambre Antique, we wanted to pay tribute to an icon of modern perfumery and reinforce the bridge between Coty’s past and present. What was innovative and compelling then can be equally so now.
We are seeing a major resurgence in the amber category at the moment, so it felt very fitting for Infiniment Coty Paris to return to its roots and pay homage to this timeless scent. For Ambre Antique, we were not interested in modernising the fragrance. We wanted to fully respect the olfactory experience of the original from 1905 and present it to a contemporary audience, anticipating that its olfactive signature would gain entrance consumers.
Vogue: What does this new addition say about how Coty defines luxury today?
The relaunch of Ambre Antique reflects Coty’s view that luxury in fragrance today is grounded in a combination of heritage, technical skill and innovation. Recreating a scent from 1905 isn’t about nostalgia — it involves navigating regulatory changes, ingredients sourcing and evolving consumer expectations. That process requires specific expertise, which we’ve developed in-house over time.
For Coty, the idea of luxury also means investing in R&D [research and development] and formulation capabilities that allow us to revisit the past while exploring new directions. Whether it’s reinterpreting a historical fragrance or working with new technologies, we see both as part of the same approach to innovation within the prestige category.
Vogue: How has consumer response to the original Infiniment Coty Paris collection informed your thinking around what resonates in prestige fragrance today?
We’ve seen strong performance across the original collection, but Encore Une Fois has stood out in particular. It features a duo of vanillas that consumers have responded to very positively, both for its warmth and the richness of its composition. That reaction reinforced what we were already seeing more broadly: a growing appetite for amber-style fragrances with depth, sensuality and lasting power. That demand helped inform the decision to reintroduce Ambre Antique. The original was a foundational scent in the amber category, and it features the kind of textured vanilla note that aligns with current preferences. Bringing it back felt like a natural progression — both as a nod to Coty’s heritage and as a response to where the consumer is moving in the luxury space.
Vogue: With Infiniment Coty Paris, you’ve made a clear shift towards developing fragrances in-house, rather than relying on third parties. What strategic advantages does this give Coty in a market defined by heritage and innovation?
Developing fragrances in-house gives us more control over both creative direction and technical execution. It allows us to build on our heritage in a way that feels intentional and rooted in deep expertise, rather than simply referencing the past. In the case of Ambre Antique, we were able to revisit the original formulation from 1905 with a level of access and understanding that would be difficult to replicate externally.
This structure also gives us more agility when it comes to identifying and responding to market shifts. Our internal team — including fragrance experts and what we call “olfactive translators” within our consumer market insights function — plays a key role in interpreting consumer preferences and shaping fragrance concepts accordingly.
One example of how this comes together is Molecular Aura, a proprietary technology developed for the collection. It extends the sillage and longevity of a fragrance to up to 30 hours, which directly addresses consumer demand for long-lasting scents. Innovations like this are increasingly important as consumers look for both performance and story in their fragrance choices.
Vogue: Beyond storytelling, what message does Ambre Antique send about Coty’s long-term positioning in the fragrance industry?
Ambre Antique reflects Coty’s broader ambition to operate at the intersection of tradition and innovation. Just as the company helped shape modern perfumery in its early years, we’re now looking at how historical references can be reinterpreted in ways that feel relevant to today’s consumer.
The names Infiniment Coty Paris and Ambre Antique both speak to this idea of time and how a fragrance can feel rooted in the past but still entirely new in its execution. That tension between timelessness and modernity is central to how we’re thinking about Coty’s future in the prestige fragrance space. It’s not about recreating history exactly as it was, but about drawing from it to define what comes next.
Vogue: What long-term strategic role do you envision Infiniment Coty Paris playing in strengthening Coty’s reputation in haute parfumerie and among new-generation luxury consumers?
The bet is that we’re ushering in a new era for fragrances and perfumery by leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as Molecular Aura and EmoChar to blend science, art and emotion. Today, luxury consumers are seeking more than a perfume; they’re demanding a sensory catalyst with the power to conjure memories, elicit intense emotions and forge deep psychological attachments. We hope Infiniment Coty Paris’s artistic excellence and cutting-edge science meets and surpasses that demand.
Correction: Ambre Antique does not include Coty’s Molecular Aura technology as previously reported. (20 October 2026)
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