Fragonard: from a simple family legacy to a thriving business | Impossible-Possible (English version)

Description

How did the three sisters take the reins of a small family perfumery and turn it into a house renowned for its expertise in France and far beyond? In this episode of Impossible • Possible, Françoise Fabre and Agnès Webster, co-directors of the Fragonard perfume company, take us on a fascinating journey. “We've learned to turn challenges into opportunities”, they assert, illustrating their family heritage that led them to Grasse, the world capital of perfumery. These creative and inspiring women have redefined the fragrance landscape by developing a ‘transversal’ brand that goes far beyond the world of perfume. Discover their views on independence, collaboration and family heritage.

About the podcast Impossible • Possible

For its 160th anniversary, Societe Generale wanted to celebrate the relationship of trust with its clients and partners, without whom nothing would have been possible. Thus, was born the Impossible • Possible art project. Marco D'Anna, a photographer, produced a series of 75 portraits of these men and women on behalf of the Group: entrepreneurs, doctors, financiers, families, volunteers, musicians, industrialists... We decided to go beyond the images... Discover these human stories, where the impossible becomes possible, these authentic testimonials where the protagonists reveal their paths, their visions, their passions.

AI generated audio from the original french version

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

Françoise Fabre
It is an extraordinary chance to be born in this family with a perfume business in Grasse, with so many possibilities, so many strings to our bow.
Agnès Webster
Especially since our grandfather was initially a notary in Saint-Chamond. So we were very lucky that he decided that asthma bothered him, and that he needed to live in Grasse, which was a renowned resort for breathing, because it was 500 meters above sea level. So in 1921, he moved his family to Grasse. He saw that the main trade of the town was perfumery. He was elected president of the perfumers' union. And from there, he decided to buy a small company, to set up his own structure. And he named his factory after the most famous son of the town of Grasse, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, the painter of Louis XVI. So frankly, we were very lucky that he did all of this, our great-grandfather. My father was very traditional, and he raised us saying: "I only have daughters, I will have sons-in-law to work". He told our mother: "Let them sleep, they can sleep, they are girls". This was very pleasant, we appreciated a lot during our childhood not to have pressure.
Françoise Fabre
Later, we had the image of our mother who was very feminist, who raised us saying: "There is no independence without economic independence, so you must have a job, you must work". And that shaped us a lot. Our father was certainly more authoritarian, but he wasn't so with us because he didn't expect us to take over the reins of the business. He didn't imagine that at all.
Agnès Webster
And it was when he saw that we were going to work and that we were not going to seek to get married and run a household that he thought: "After all, why wouldn't they come with us?". It was both a job that interested me and that I was passionate about, since perfume is a profession that makes everyone dream and made me dream a lot, but it was very male-dominated at the time in terms of management. I needed my sister to come help me. She arrived very quickly, in 1986, and we formed a duo that worked immediately, extremely quickly and well. Then our older sister, who is a doctor, joined us later and takes care of our cosmetic product collections by supervising the manufacturing laboratory in Eze Village.
Françoise Fabre
Agnès has a very artistic, very creative, very conceptual personality. And what she felt at the time was the harshness of this male environment that did not want her. When she came to get me, I said yes very easily because we had just spent four years studying together and we got along very well and understood that we were complementary. Agnès brought me the fantasy, which I do enjoy and find amusing. And I brought her a sense of security in our functioning so that there are many subjects she does not need to worry about. And at the time, we formed a front together against, at times, a certain adversity.
Agnès Webster
For nearly 40 years that we have both been working and for about 20 years that we have been running the business, no one has ever managed to interfere between us. I know what Françoise thinks, Françoise knows what I think.
Françoise Fabre
In fact, we have a very twin-like functioning.
Agnès Webster
And it is in finding ourselves in work that we ultimately cultivated this complementarity that worked very well, which gave us a lot of flexibility. It works in a very intuitive way.
Françoise Fabre
The strength of our company is the mutual understanding we three sisters have. And the intelligence of my sister Agnès, who is just above me, is that she entered two years before me, not having run the business like the older sister who runs everything and is a single voice. And we really have a dual voice functioning, even a triple voice. Which is unusual in Grasse, which is unusual in businesses in a fairly general way. There is no hierarchy between us, we have the same vision, but we also have the same power within the company. And that is a real strength. And this solitude that a business leader can have, we do not have. We have never had it.
Agnès Webster
Everyone works together towards a common goal, which is to have the best life possible and to radiate this beautiful life around us through the products we make, through the quality of life we try to provide in our company and through the way we educate our children to pass on these values. We were lucky to have wonderful parents. We try to be good parents ourselves. We will see if they will one day say we are wonderful, I don't know. But in any case, we try to do our best to uphold this beautiful mutual understanding that we have. I think we have a very feminine management style, indeed. We have this acuity that makes us perhaps more sensitive to the daily lives of people. So that is where I feel we succeed well in our role as business leaders, it is that we pay great attention to our teams, we pay attention to ensuring that people are comfortable in their work, that they are happy in their everyday activities, we spend 8 hours a day working, it should be as pleasant as possible. We pay great attention to ensuring that everyone gets along. Our company is a small house, but it shines in every way. We are fortunate to have a fairly dynamic cultural policy, with different exhibitions in our museums, with a profession that is constantly renewed. There are many things happening in perfumery. There are many things we can share with people. We decide to train people, we decide to help them evolve in the company to the maximum of their possibilities. And then, the joy of living, the cheerfulness, the fantasy, so that it is still pleasant to come to work at Fragonard. I think I am also lucky to be surrounded by a very strong creative team. I have had an artistic director for thirty years who follows me and supports us in all our desires and little whims. I have a very talented graphic creative team that gives life to all the ideas we can bring to them. I told myself ultimately, my father's management, which was very serious management, needed to be a little spiced up with more human warmth. And I have always been keen to think about appreciating people, to tell them how good what they do is, how much we appreciate the work, how beautiful this drawing is, or how successful this color is, or how particularly delightful this fragrance is. Because it is important. Of course, people can know it, but if we tell them, it is even better. The strength that Françoise and I have is that we have developed a brand that is uniquely its own. We have been fortunate to benefit from this uniqueness and we have developed it. We have developed the cultural activity, we have developed a brand with a way of doing things that was completely atypical when we started. At the end of the 90's, when we both arrived with my father telling him that we wanted to tell the story of a company that would go into every room of the house, whether it be the bathroom with perfumery, the kitchen with tableware, the living room with cushions, and the closet with the wardrobe. So, it was the idea of a cross-functional brand. At the time, we did not call it this way. In 1995, no one talked about cross-functional brands. And we did not put the words to it, but we were making the products.
Françoise Fabre
We have an extraordinary understanding, that is the truth.
Agnès Webster
A great complementarity.
Françoise Fabre
So each of us has a field of intervention. I think we understand what the other wants, what the other wishes, and we have the same vision.
Agnès Webster
Our children are young. They are 18 years old for the oldest and 15 years old for the youngest. They have the future ahead of them. We do what we can to give them the right values that we try to pass on in the company. After that, it will be up to them to see what they want to do with it.
Françoise Fabre
I think our children will want to come work at Fragonard. Maybe not all of them, but since we have six, that is a lot. We certainly give them the choice to do what they want, but they love the company. I think they really love the company. They love all the possibilities that Fragonard offers. We sell perfumes, we sell all the items for the home. We bought a beautiful agricultural property where we make a perfumer's mast. There are museums, there are quite a lot of different jobs within Fragonard, where perhaps everyone can find their place. And it also allows us to project our company into the future. For us, it is also nice to think that we have a transmission, we work in the spirit of a transmission. Fragonard, for us, is defined as a brand of happiness, cheerfulness, and fantasy.
Agnès Webster
For me, Fragonard is color. And the joy of living. We also find ourselves on the same words, both of us.

Description

About the podcast Impossible • Possible

AI generated audio from the original french version

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

Françoise Fabre
It is an extraordinary chance to be born in this family with a perfume business in Grasse, with so many possibilities, so many strings to our bow.
Agnès Webster
Especially since our grandfather was initially a notary in Saint-Chamond. So we were very lucky that he decided that asthma bothered him, and that he needed to live in Grasse, which was a renowned resort for breathing, because it was 500 meters above sea level. So in 1921, he moved his family to Grasse. He saw that the main trade of the town was perfumery. He was elected president of the perfumers' union. And from there, he decided to buy a small company, to set up his own structure. And he named his factory after the most famous son of the town of Grasse, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, the painter of Louis XVI. So frankly, we were very lucky that he did all of this, our great-grandfather. My father was very traditional, and he raised us saying: "I only have daughters, I will have sons-in-law to work". He told our mother: "Let them sleep, they can sleep, they are girls". This was very pleasant, we appreciated a lot during our childhood not to have pressure.
Françoise Fabre
Later, we had the image of our mother who was very feminist, who raised us saying: "There is no independence without economic independence, so you must have a job, you must work". And that shaped us a lot. Our father was certainly more authoritarian, but he wasn't so with us because he didn't expect us to take over the reins of the business. He didn't imagine that at all.
Agnès Webster
And it was when he saw that we were going to work and that we were not going to seek to get married and run a household that he thought: "After all, why wouldn't they come with us?". It was both a job that interested me and that I was passionate about, since perfume is a profession that makes everyone dream and made me dream a lot, but it was very male-dominated at the time in terms of management. I needed my sister to come help me. She arrived very quickly, in 1986, and we formed a duo that worked immediately, extremely quickly and well. Then our older sister, who is a doctor, joined us later and takes care of our cosmetic product collections by supervising the manufacturing laboratory in Eze Village.
Françoise Fabre
Agnès has a very artistic, very creative, very conceptual personality. And what she felt at the time was the harshness of this male environment that did not want her. When she came to get me, I said yes very easily because we had just spent four years studying together and we got along very well and understood that we were complementary. Agnès brought me the fantasy, which I do enjoy and find amusing. And I brought her a sense of security in our functioning so that there are many subjects she does not need to worry about. And at the time, we formed a front together against, at times, a certain adversity.
Agnès Webster
For nearly 40 years that we have both been working and for about 20 years that we have been running the business, no one has ever managed to interfere between us. I know what Françoise thinks, Françoise knows what I think.
Françoise Fabre
In fact, we have a very twin-like functioning.
Agnès Webster
And it is in finding ourselves in work that we ultimately cultivated this complementarity that worked very well, which gave us a lot of flexibility. It works in a very intuitive way.
Françoise Fabre
The strength of our company is the mutual understanding we three sisters have. And the intelligence of my sister Agnès, who is just above me, is that she entered two years before me, not having run the business like the older sister who runs everything and is a single voice. And we really have a dual voice functioning, even a triple voice. Which is unusual in Grasse, which is unusual in businesses in a fairly general way. There is no hierarchy between us, we have the same vision, but we also have the same power within the company. And that is a real strength. And this solitude that a business leader can have, we do not have. We have never had it.
Agnès Webster
Everyone works together towards a common goal, which is to have the best life possible and to radiate this beautiful life around us through the products we make, through the quality of life we try to provide in our company and through the way we educate our children to pass on these values. We were lucky to have wonderful parents. We try to be good parents ourselves. We will see if they will one day say we are wonderful, I don't know. But in any case, we try to do our best to uphold this beautiful mutual understanding that we have. I think we have a very feminine management style, indeed. We have this acuity that makes us perhaps more sensitive to the daily lives of people. So that is where I feel we succeed well in our role as business leaders, it is that we pay great attention to our teams, we pay attention to ensuring that people are comfortable in their work, that they are happy in their everyday activities, we spend 8 hours a day working, it should be as pleasant as possible. We pay great attention to ensuring that everyone gets along. Our company is a small house, but it shines in every way. We are fortunate to have a fairly dynamic cultural policy, with different exhibitions in our museums, with a profession that is constantly renewed. There are many things happening in perfumery. There are many things we can share with people. We decide to train people, we decide to help them evolve in the company to the maximum of their possibilities. And then, the joy of living, the cheerfulness, the fantasy, so that it is still pleasant to come to work at Fragonard. I think I am also lucky to be surrounded by a very strong creative team. I have had an artistic director for thirty years who follows me and supports us in all our desires and little whims. I have a very talented graphic creative team that gives life to all the ideas we can bring to them. I told myself ultimately, my father's management, which was very serious management, needed to be a little spiced up with more human warmth. And I have always been keen to think about appreciating people, to tell them how good what they do is, how much we appreciate the work, how beautiful this drawing is, or how successful this color is, or how particularly delightful this fragrance is. Because it is important. Of course, people can know it, but if we tell them, it is even better. The strength that Françoise and I have is that we have developed a brand that is uniquely its own. We have been fortunate to benefit from this uniqueness and we have developed it. We have developed the cultural activity, we have developed a brand with a way of doing things that was completely atypical when we started. At the end of the 90's, when we both arrived with my father telling him that we wanted to tell the story of a company that would go into every room of the house, whether it be the bathroom with perfumery, the kitchen with tableware, the living room with cushions, and the closet with the wardrobe. So, it was the idea of a cross-functional brand. At the time, we did not call it this way. In 1995, no one talked about cross-functional brands. And we did not put the words to it, but we were making the products.
Françoise Fabre
We have an extraordinary understanding, that is the truth.
Agnès Webster
A great complementarity.
Françoise Fabre
So each of us has a field of intervention. I think we understand what the other wants, what the other wishes, and we have the same vision.
Agnès Webster
Our children are young. They are 18 years old for the oldest and 15 years old for the youngest. They have the future ahead of them. We do what we can to give them the right values that we try to pass on in the company. After that, it will be up to them to see what they want to do with it.
Françoise Fabre
I think our children will want to come work at Fragonard. Maybe not all of them, but since we have six, that is a lot. We certainly give them the choice to do what they want, but they love the company. I think they really love the company. They love all the possibilities that Fragonard offers. We sell perfumes, we sell all the items for the home. We bought a beautiful agricultural property where we make a perfumer's mast. There are museums, there are quite a lot of different jobs within Fragonard, where perhaps everyone can find their place. And it also allows us to project our company into the future. For us, it is also nice to think that we have a transmission, we work in the spirit of a transmission. Fragonard, for us, is defined as a brand of happiness, cheerfulness, and fantasy.
Agnès Webster
For me, Fragonard is color. And the joy of living. We also find ourselves on the same words, both of us.

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