Audrey Hepburn’s perfume L’Interdit
In the history of perfumery, there are a few rare creations that go beyond simply being a liquid in a bottle. These are fragrances that embody a human story, a sense of intimacy. Givenchy’s L’Interdit is one such fragrance.
To understand it, one must first grasp the extraordinary bond that united Hubert de Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn — not merely a relationship between a fashion designer and his client, but something far rarer. A deep, loyal, almost brotherly friendship that would last for over forty years.
Article written by Enzo Fenoglio for Ciné-Balade.
The Encounter with Givenchy
We are in 1953. Audrey Hepburn, a young and as yet little-known actress, walked through the door of Hubert de Givenchy’s Parisian atelier at 8 Rue Alfred de Vigny for some fittings. She was looking for dresses for the film Sabrina. Givenchy, for his part, was expecting Katharine Hepburn — the great, the famous one. Somewhat annoyed, he instead discovered a slender young woman with large, doe-like eyes and a swan-like neck, with something indefinable in her gaze – a natural grace and an elegance that did not come from the clothes, but from within her.
Their connection was instant, as if they recognised one another. According to several accounts, Givenchy would later say that Audrey meant more to him than anyone else in his professional life. And Audrey, for her part, would wear nothing but his dresses — both on screen and in real life, right up to her final farewell: it was Givenchy who chose the dress she would wear at her funeral. This woman, who had lived through the war and known hunger in occupied Holland, this woman who had become a ballerina out of discipline rather than a dream, possessed a beauty that was not the kind found in magazines. It was the beauty of someone who had learnt not to squander what truly matters.
« Elegance is the only beauty that never goes out of fashion. » — Audrey Hepburn
It was for this woman – for her, and her alone – that Hubert de Givenchy would, a few years later, commission a perfume. Not for the star. For the friend.
Audrey Hepburn, an olfactory portrait
In 1954, Givenchy entrusted a delicate task to the perfumer Francis Fabron, who had already created Nina Ricci’s legendary L’Air du Temps. The brief was simple yet demanding: to create a fragrance that resembled Audrey – not the actress, but the woman.
Fabron worked with the leading fragrance houses in Grasse, at Roure Bertrand Dupont — now Givaudan. He began with a base of aldehydes, those molecules that evoke clean laundry, morning frost, and cool sheets against warm skin. Soft aldehydes, never harsh — just like the presence Audrey knew how to command without ever being overbearing.
Each note of the fragrance seems to have been chosen as one might choose the words for a personal letter.
In the top notes, the aldehydes open with a sparkling freshness, accompanied by luminous bergamot, golden peach and strawberry — light, sun-kissed, almost mischievous. It is Audrey’s smile, that spontaneous joy she never feigned.
At the heart lies a floral bouquet of infinite delicacy: powdery iris, shy violet, white rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, lily of the valley and narcissus. Not a garish garden — a spring garden still cool, bathed in half-light.
In the base notes, Mysore sandalwood envelops everything in a creamy warmth, joined by amber, benzoin, vetiver and tonka bean. The quiet depth of someone who has lived a full life and makes no show of it.
Hubert wanted to capture not the film star, but Audrey the woman — the one the world didn’t know
The result is a fragrance of absolute elegance — neither too strong nor too subtle. A fragrance that does not set out to seduce, yet does so all the same. Just like her.
L’Interdit — The world’s most exclusive perfume
For three years, from 1954 to 1957, Audrey Hepburn was the only woman in the world to wear this perfume. Just one woman, on the whole planet, who smelled like this. There was no shop, no bottles for sale, no advertising. It was an absolute secret, a luxury of a kind that money cannot buy.
She wore it every day, in her everyday life — not just on the red carpet or in front of the cameras. It is her perfume as a woman, not as a star. It accompanies her mornings in Rome, her walks in New York, her moments of solitude and joy. Over time, it becomes inseparable from her. Those who were close to her during those years will never forget this light, elegant fragrance, impossible to name.
« Mais je vous l’interdis ! »
In 1957, Hubert de Givenchy decided to launch the perfume — it would be his first fragrance creation for the house. He spoke to Audrey about it. And Audrey, that woman so generous to the whole world, resisted. She said no. She said, in a tone that was both tender and firm: « Mais je vous l’interdis ! »
This heartfelt cry was not a star’s whim. It was something more intimate. The resistance of someone who cherishes the uniqueness of something beautiful. This perfume was hers. To share it was, in a way, to lose it.
But Givenchy persisted, gently. And Audrey, generous at heart as ever, eventually relented — on condition that this gesture be honoured. The perfume would be called L’Interdit in memory of this refusal born of love. And Audrey Hepburn agreed to lend her face to the advertising campaign. Later, she would pose for Bert Stern in a campaign that became iconic, thus becoming the first actress in history to officially embody a perfume.
Before Chanel No. 5 and Marilyn Monroe, before all the collaborations between divas and perfumers that would define the twentieth century, there was L’Interdit and Audrey Hepburn: an actress associated with a fragrance born of a friendship.
A rising icon of the perfume world
What Givenchy and Audrey unwittingly created in 1957 was a model that would shape the entire perfume industry for decades to come. The idea that a perfume could embody a personality, that a face could convey an olfactory world, that a woman could be at once the inspiration, the wearer and the ambassador for a fragrance — all of this began here, in this gesture of friendship between a fashion designer and his friend.
But L’Interdit stands out from so many stories that would follow in one fundamental respect. It was not created to sell. It was created out of love. It is a portrait, not a product. A tribute, not a strategy. And it is precisely this that gives it an emotional depth that perfumes devised by marketing committees will never be able to match.
Reformulations through the ages
L’Interdit enjoyed a long commercial life before being gradually withdrawn from the market in the 1990s in the United States. In 2002, the LVMH group — owner of Givenchy since Hubert left his own house in 1995 — decided to relaunch the name. But not the fragrance. A light, commercial, fruity-floral fragrance now bears the same name, much to the astonishment of those who had known the original.
In 2007, to mark Hubert de Givenchy’s 80th birthday, a more respectful attempt was launched. This was the Les Mythiques version, with its notes of Bulgarian rose, redcurrant and a hint of musk and incense. It is not the original — but it is a sincere echo of it, a way of paying homage to the spirit, if not the letter.
Then came 2018. A new L’Interdit, worn by the actress Rooney Mara, built around tuberose, pear, vanilla and patchouli. A fragrance of its time — well-crafted, seductive in its own way. But olfactorily a world away from the 1957 masterpiece. The marketing copy evokes ‘the thrill of the forbidden’, ‘subversion’, ‘a decidedly underground flower’. Words that would have made Audrey Hepburn smile — or shudder.
2018, The year of double bereavement
There is something unsettling and melancholic about the year 2018 for anyone familiar with this story. It was the year the new L’Interdit was launched — a fragrance so far removed from the original. And it is also the year in which Hubert de Givenchy passed away, on 10 March, at the age of 91.
The man who had invented it all — friendship, perfume, the modesty never to boast of it — passed away at the very moment when his most intimate creation was being given a new lease of life by hands that no longer held its intimate memory. It was as though one of the last guardians of the secret had departed just before the secret was erased for good.
The soul does not disappear. It fades gently, like a fragrance on the skin as the hours pass.
Hubert de Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn have both passed away — she in 1993, he in 2018. Between them, the original L’Interdit remains like a suspended conversation, a reminder of what true elegance can be: not what one shows, but what one offers.
Epilogue — The Quest for the Lost Bottle
Today, the original 1957 L’Interdit is no longer available in shops. It still exists, in a few preserved bottles, at specialist auctions and in the collections of enthusiasts. The 2007 Les Mythiques version — the one most faithful to the spirit of the original — can still occasionally be found on the second-hand market. And perhaps this is the finest way to honour this woman who, one day in 1957, simply said no — thereby giving this fragrance its name, this story its soul, and those who receive it the rare feeling of having touched something irreplaceable.
Seeking it out is, in itself, a gesture that is very much in Audrey’s spirit. It means choosing depth over ease, authenticity over commercialism, and memory over fashion. It means refusing to let souls fade away completely.
To find out more, discover her story with the House of Givenchy on a movie tour through Audrey Hepburn’s Paris and read our article on her iconic films shot in Paris.
