Coty began its mission to transform the global beauty industry over 100 years ago. The story goes that founder Francois Coty dropped a bottle of his latest fragrance concoction, La Rose Jacqueminot, on the sales floor of a busy Parisian department store. Within seconds of the scent filling nearby shoppers’ nostrils, they were asking where they could buy this incredible perfume.
A few months later, La Rose Jacqueminot was being sold in large quantities across the French capital. Bolstered by this early success, Coty made many more attention-grabbing fragrances. By 1907, his success was such that Coty opened its first boutique on La Place Vendôme in Paris.
The company’s reputation for fine fragrances grew over the following decades. Before long, Coty’s success had spread beyond France, and it quickly became the go-to brand for alluring and head-turning perfumes.
Coty’s incredible stable of scents was soon supplemented with many more high-quality cosmetics. In 1910, the company began rolling out a host of new products, from face powder and skin creams to hair and nail treatments and men’s toiletries.
Fast forward to the 1970s, and Coty was driving the cosmetics industry’s rapid innovation, pioneering new applications, effects and formulations. By the 1990s, product diversification became big brand partnerships as the company took on the fragrance operations for prestigious names, including Calvin Klein, Vera Wang and Miu Miu.
Unsurprisingly, Coty came to dominate the global market across all its key divisions. By 2016, it was the world’s number one fragrance brand, number two professional hair styling brand and number three cosmetics brand. Today, it manages the fragrance and cosmetics operations of international brands, including Adidas, Balenciaga, David Beckham, Hugo Boss, Stella McCartney and Tiffany & Co.
