The world's first perfume archive
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
On 26 April 1990, the world's first perfume archive opened in Versailles, France.
The idea behind L'Osmothèque was to create a collection of scents and preserve their memory.
Perfumer Jean Claude Ellena was one of the team who created it.
He speaks to Jen Dale about how L'Osmothèque was founded and how perfumes from previous centuries, that no longer existed, were re-created.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.
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(Image: Perfume bottles at L'Osmothèque, Versailles. Credit: L'Osmothèque)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
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| 0:10.1 | It's such a wonderful listen. |
| 0:11.7 | So nice. |
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| 0:17.9 | Where you can also listen to live sports commentary. |
| 0:20.2 | It's right foot goes for goal. |
| 0:21.6 | And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories. |
| 0:27.7 | The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession. |
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| 0:51.7 | Hi, this is Witness History from the BBC World Service with me, Jen Dale. If you're a regular listener, feel free to skip ahead a little bit, but if you're listening |
| 0:55.5 | for the very first time, welcome. We're the podcast that takes you back to a moment in history |
| 1:00.5 | by speaking to those who are there and using amazing archive. If that sounds like something |
| 1:06.1 | you'd listen to, hit subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts and turn on your notifications so you never |
| 1:13.0 | miss an episode. I'm taking you back to the 26th of April 1990 when the world's first |
| 1:19.5 | perfume archive opened in Versailles, France. So inhale deeply and let's tantalise your senses. |
| 1:26.5 | These shelves hold a treasure which, to those of the right nose, is almost beyond price. |
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