Carven
Carven was founded in Paris in 1945 by Carmen de Tommaso, who took her grandmother's surname for the house and built it around a precise commercial idea: couture for petite women, in a market then dominated by tall mannequins. Trained in architecture at the Beaux-Arts, she dressed the house in green-and-white stripes that became its identifiable signature. Fragrance arrived a year later with Ma Griffe — a sharp green chypre by Jean Carles, launched with parachutes of perfumed samples dropped over Paris. Vetiver followed in 1957 as the house's first masculine and remains a quiet classic of the genre. Madame de Tommaso ran the house personally until selling it in 1995, and she lived to 105. After several owners, Bluebell Group took a majority stake in 2018 and continues to manage Carven from Paris, with the fragrance license operated separately.
DNA over time
Each column is an era. Each colored band shows that family’s share of accord weight across every perfume the house released in that window. Bigger band = the house leaned harder on that family.
