Elizabeth Arden Perfumes: Fleurs d'Annam by Babani (1920)

Fleurs d’Annam by Babani, launched in 1920, belongs squarely to the evocative, Orientalist perfume culture of the early 20th century. The name itself was carefully chosen. Annam was the French colonial name for central Vietnam prior to 1945, and at the time of the perfume’s release it formed part of French Indochina, alongside Tonkin, Cochinchina, Cambodia, and Laos. To European audiences, Annam suggested a poetic and cultivated East—lush, perfumed, and ancient—filtered through the romantic lens of colonial imagination. By subtitling the fragrance Parfum Annamite, Babani aligned the perfume directly with this vision, signaling an origin rooted in the imagined floral richness of Vietnam while appealing to the era’s fascination with distant, sensual landscapes.

The phrase Fleurs d’Annam is French and translates simply to “Flowers of Annam.” Pronounced as “FLUR duh-NAHM,” the name has a soft, flowing cadence that mirrors its intended character. Linguistically and emotionally, it evokes enclosed gardens, warm air saturated with blossom, and an intimate, almost secret beauty. Babani’s advertising language reinforces this imagery: “Gardens of the East are close walled, tight locked, but their perfume is for everyone.” This metaphor suggests exclusivity without denial—hidden beauty made accessible through scent. The perfume is positioned as a distillation of many flowers rather than a single identifiable bloom, emphasizing atmosphere, mood, and emotional resonance over botanical precision.

The year 1920 places Fleurs d’Annam at a pivotal cultural moment. Europe was emerging from the devastation of World War I and entering what is now known as the early Jazz Age, within the broader Art Deco period. Fashion favored fluid silhouettes, sheer fabrics, exotic embellishments, and a new lightness of movement. There was an appetite for fantasy, escape, and sensual refinement, all of which strongly influenced perfumery. Scent compositions grew richer and more abstract, with perfumers moving away from simple soliflores toward complex accords designed to suggest places, moods, and identities. Fleurs d’Annam reflects this shift perfectly, presenting itself not as a literal bouquet but as a poetic impression of floral abundance.

Women of the period would likely have experienced Fleurs d’Annam as youthful, romantic, and quietly alluring. Babani’s description—appealing to “a heart full of youth and naïveté”—frames the perfume as an enhancer of natural charm rather than overt seduction. It suggests innocence touched with sophistication, an ideal well suited to the modern woman of the 1920s, who balanced newfound freedoms with lingering ideals of grace and femininity. The promise that “the merest stranger” would sense “the depth of your loveliness” positions the perfume as an intimate signature—soft yet memorable, personal yet expressive.

Interpreted in scent, Fleurs d’Annam as “pungent” and composed of “millions of flowers of the Orient” would have been lush, radiant, and diffusive. While exact formulas are lost, it appears it might have been based on the basic Mille Fleurs structure using flowers associated with Vietnam and the broader Annam region that were available to perfumers at the time likely included jasmine, ylang-ylang, frangipani (plumeria), lotus, champaca, and possibly orange blossom and rose sourced through colonial trade networks. These would have been blended to create an impressionistic floral accord—recognizable as floral, yet deliberately indefinable, aligning with Babani’s claim that “we feel them all, we define none of them.”

Within the broader perfume market of the time, Fleurs d’Annam was not an outlier but rather an elegant expression of prevailing trends. Oriental and exotic florals were highly fashionable, and many houses explored similar themes. What distinguishes Fleurs d’Annam is its emphasis on delicacy, youth, and abstraction rather than weight or incense-laden depth. Its suggested pairing with Saigon—to create “a more subtle fragrance” for “the filmy dance costume”—reveals Babani’s nuanced approach to layering and personalization, anticipating later perfume practices. In this way, Fleurs d’Annam stands as a refined, poetic embodiment of its era: romantic, imaginative, and deeply rooted in the aesthetic currents of early 20th-century perfumery.

Fragrance Composition:

So what does it smell like? It is classified as a floral oriental fragrance for women.

Top notes: bergamot, lemon, neroli, sweet orange, verbena, lavender, cassie, narcissus, hyacinth, lotus
Middle notes: daffodil, honey, jasmine, geranium, rose, rose geranium, violet, tuberose, orange blossom, ylang ylang, reseda, frangipani
Base notes: champaca, heliotrope, tolu balsam, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, vanillin, musk, orris, cedar, calamus, patchouli, storax, styrax, vetiver, civet, ambergris

Scent Profile:

The fragrance opens like the gates of a walled garden at dawn, when the air is still cool but already trembling with warmth. A bright veil of bergamot and lemon flashes first—sparkling, gently bitter, and green-edged—bringing clarity and lift, like sunlight striking dew. Sweet orange adds a rounder, golden juiciness, while neroli, distilled from orange blossoms, softens the citrus with a honeyed floral radiance that feels both luminous and intimate.

Verbena flickers sharply, herbal and lemony, lending a clean, almost crystalline freshness, while lavender—cool, aromatic, and faintly camphoraceous—introduces composure and poise. Almost immediately, florals begin to surface: cassie, the velvety acacia blossom prized for its warm, powdery, pollen-like richness; narcissus and hyacinth, green, indolic, and slightly earthy, their damp floral breath evoking freshly turned soil beneath petals. Lotus, associated with Vietnam’s lakes and temple ponds, floats above it all—watery, translucent, and quietly spiritual, offering a serenity that distinguishes it from heavier Western florals.

As the fragrance unfolds, the heart becomes opulent and densely woven, true to the mille fleurs tradition. Daffodil echoes narcissus but with a greener, hay-like nuance, warmed by a note of honey that feels golden, slightly animalic, and sunlit, as if pollen were melting on the skin. Jasmine, likely inspired by the intensely fragrant varieties cultivated in Southeast Asia, blooms with creamy, indolic depth—sensual yet refined—while geranium and rose geranium add a rosy, mint-tinged freshness that keeps the bouquet buoyant.

Rose emerges not as a single soliflore but as a plush, abstract floral body, velvety and slightly spicy, entwined with violet, whose powdery, violet-leaf coolness lends softness and a cosmetic elegance. Tuberose brings voluptuous creaminess and nocturnal heat, balanced by orange blossom, which returns with a waxy, honeyed glow. Ylang-ylang, long associated with tropical Asia, contributes a narcotic, banana-like creaminess, while reseda (mignonette) introduces a green, almondy freshness. Frangipani (plumeria)—emblematic of tropical gardens—rounds the heart with a milky, solar floral warmth that feels languid and exotic, as if the air itself were perfumed.

The base is deep, resinous, and quietly intoxicating, grounding the floral abundance in shadow and warmth. Champaca, revered in South and Southeast Asia, radiates a tea-like, fruity floral richness that bridges flower and wood, more sensual and leathery than magnolia. Heliotrope follows with its almond-vanilla softness, a gentle, powdery sweetness that feels comforting and intimate.

Tolu balsam, with its syrupy warmth of vanilla, cinnamon, and resin, melts seamlessly into vanilla itself—creamy and enveloping—amplified by vanillin, whose synthetic purity intensifies sweetness and diffusion, making the vanilla glow more evenly across the composition. Cinnamon and cloves add warmth and spice, dry and aromatic rather than sharp, while orris lends a cool, buttery iris powder that smooths every transition. Cedar provides structure—dry, pencil-wood clarity—contrasted with the earthy, slightly medicinal tones of calamus and the damp, shadowed richness of patchouli.

As the fragrance settles fully, animalic and mineral depths emerge. Storax and styrax exhale smoky, balsamic sweetness, echoing temple incense and lacquered wood. Vetiver brings a rooty, smoky dryness, while musk softens the composition with a skin-like warmth. Civet, used sparingly, adds a faintly animal, intimate hum—never crude, but essential to the perfume’s living warmth—while ambergris contributes a saline, ambery radiance that enhances diffusion and longevity, giving the scent its lingering aura.

Together, these elements create a floral oriental tapestry in which natural florals are enriched and stabilized by resins and aroma chemicals, allowing the bouquet to feel both lush and enduring. The result is a perfume that does not describe a single flower or place, but rather immerses you in the sensation of standing within an unseen garden of Annam—humid air, blossoms heavy with scent, incense drifting in the distance—experienced not as a list of notes, but as a continuous, sensuous atmosphere.

Personal Perfumes:

Babani encouraged women to approach perfume not as a fixed, finished statement, but as a personal art form. Rather than prescribing a single, immutable scent, he advised his clientele to blend his fragrances together, allowing each woman to create a composition uniquely her own. In this context, Fleurs d’Annam was presented as a versatile floral foundation—soft, radiant, and youthful—that could be deepened or reshaped through pairing.

When combined with Saigon, its luminous garden florals would be enveloped in darker, incense-laden warmth, transforming innocence into mystery and ceremony. Blended with Chypre, the sweetness and floral abundance of Fleurs d’Annam would be sharpened by mossy, resinous structure, lending sophistication and modern edge. This invitation to layering reflected Babani’s progressive understanding of fragrance as intimate self-expression, anticipating later perfume practices and empowering women of the era to curate a scent that evolved with mood, occasion, and identity.