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François Coty

François Coty
Coty, François (Regards 1934-03-16).jpg
Coty in 1934.
Mayor of Ajaccio
In office
May 1931 – August 1934
Preceded by Dominique Paoli
Succeeded by Hyacinthe Campiglia
Personal details
Born Joseph Marie François Spoturno
(1874-05-03)May 3, 1874
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
Died July 25, 1934(1934-07-25) (aged 60)
Louveciennes, Yvelines, France
Political party The Fasces (1925–1927)
Cross of Fire (1927–1933)
French Solidarity (1933–1934)
Spouse(s) Yvonne Alexandrine Le Baron (m. 1900; his death 1934)
Children Rolande
Christiane
Profession Businessman
Religion Roman Catholicism

François Coty (born Joseph Marie François Spoturno; 3 May 1874 – 25 July 1934) was a French perfumer and businessman. He was a founder of the fascist league Solidarité Française. The company he founded in 1904 is now Coty, Inc., based in New York City.

Joseph Marie François Spoturno was born on 3 May 1874 in Ajaccio, Corsica. He was a descendant of Isabelle Bonaparte, an aunt of Napoleon Bonaparte. His parents were Jean-Baptiste Spoturno and Marie-Adolphine-Françoise Coti, both descendants of Genoese settlers who founded Ajaccio in the 15th century. His parents died when he was a child and the young François was raised by his great-grandmother, Marie Josephe Spoturno, and after her death, by his grandmother, Anna Maria Belone Spoturno, who lived in Marseille.

After spending some years in military service, François met a fellow Corsican named Emmanuel Arène. A politician, writer, and future senator, Arène became François's mentor, offering him a job in Paris as his secretary. In Paris, François married Yvonne Alexandrine Le Baron and took the more French-looking name Coty, a variation on his mother's maiden name. He also met Raymond Goery, a pharmacist who made and sold perfume at his Paris shop. Coty began to learn about perfumery from Goery and created his first fragrance, Cologne Coty.

Through Arène, Coty met Antoine Chiris, a senator and member of the Chiris family, longtime manufacturers and distributors of perfume. At the Chiris factories in Grasse, Coty studied perfumery and began work on a fragrance, La Rose Jacqueminot. On his return to Paris in 1904, Coty set off to sell his scents to department stores, boutiques, and barbershops, but initially met with little success. His luck changed when he dropped a bottle of La Rose Jacqueminot on a countertop at the Grands Magasins du Louvre, the Parisian department store. Attracted by the scent, customers swarmed the area, demanding to buy the perfume. Coty's entire stock was gone in a few minutes and the store offered him a place on the selling floor for his products. The success of La Rose made Coty a millionaire and established him as a major player in the perfume world.

Coty was both a talented perfumer and a brilliant marketer. He was the first to recognize that an attractive bottle was essential to a perfume's success. Though La Rose came in a Baccarat bottle, Coty's most famous collaboration was with the great ceramist and jeweler René Lalique. Lalique designed the bottles for Coty's early scents, such as Ambre Antique and L'Origan, which became bestsellers. He also designed the labels for Coty perfume, which were printed on a gold background with raised lettering. Lalique's designs for Coty were in the Art Nouveau style that was prevalent in the period, and incorporated classic Art Nouveau themes such as nature, flowers, and female figures.


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