Launched in 1913, Le Minaret was one of the earliest fragrances released by Paul Poiret under his perfume house, Les Parfums de Rosine. The name Le Minaret—pronounced "luh mee-nah-RET"—comes from the French word for the slender towers found on mosques, traditionally used for the call to prayer. In choosing this name, Poiret was tapping into the potent mystique of the Orient as it was then imagined by the West—romanticized, sensual, and richly adorned. More specifically, the perfume was named after the 1913 ballet Le Minaret, written by Jacques Richepin, for which Poiret himself had designed the costumes. This direct connection between scent, stage, and spectacle underscores Poiret’s desire to turn perfume into an extension of theatrical and visual art.
The name Le Minaret conjures images of domed palaces, tiled courtyards, and the sound of distant music echoing through perfumed air. It evokes an emotional world of sensuality and stillness, of mystery behind closed shutters and sun-soaked silence. In the cultural imagination of the Belle Époque, such a word suggested travel, opulence, and escape into an imagined East—fantasies made popular by Orientalist painters, operas, and ballets. For the French audience in 1913, the word “minaret” would not have suggested religion so much as mood: the exotic allure of elsewhere.
The fragrance was born at the height of the Belle Époque, a period of artistic flourishing, confidence, and social transformation in Europe, just before the outbreak of the First World War. Fashion, too, was evolving rapidly—Poiret himself was at the center of this change, having already revolutionized women’s dress by rejecting corsets in favor of flowing, Eastern-inspired silhouettes. His fashions took inspiration from Persian, Turkish, and North African dress, and Le Minaret was a natural olfactory counterpart to this aesthetic. Perfume in this period was no longer just about floral daintiness; it was beginning to embrace stronger, more sensuous themes.
