From a series written for Radio National’s Blueprint for Living. Thisicon first aired on 7th October 2023. You can listen to the audio here.

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According to Coco Chanel, a woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future. Tom Ford noted that wearing cologne transforms a man into a gentleman. So gentlemanship and the future looked secure with the invention of the atomiser, or perfumiser, as it was sometimes called.

Although mechanical sprays appeared in the early nineteenth century and were used by gardeners and craftspeople, the atomiser as we know it was the invention of one man, a medical doctor in Ohio called Allen DeVilbiss. As a nose and throat specialist, he wanted a more hygienic way of coating the throat with medicated oil. His solution was a metal gadget that had a squeezable rubber bulb on one side, a long nozzle with an atomising spray head on the other, and a tube in-between  that went down into a container holding the oil. Squeezing the bulb pushed air out through the nozzle, drawing the fluid from the container in the process and thereby creating a fine spray. DeVilbiss took out a patent in 1887 and then opened a small factory to make them, and production continues. When the doctor’s son Thomas joined the company in 1905 he thought the atomiser could be adapted as a perfume spray.

It was a moment of perfect timing. Although perfume had been popular for centuries, especially in eras when personal hygiene was more a matter of masking unpleasant odours rather than washing them away, the thirst for scents burgeoned at the end of the nineteenth century with notable perfumiers in France and Russia creating aromas that everyone wanted. The usual way of applying them was with the glass stopper of the bottle they came in, or dabbing a handkerchief in the bottle and then applying it to the skin. How effortless and romantic it was instead to be enveloped within a cloud of scent. With the perfumiser, a manufacturer could create bottles of all types on which the atomising gadget could be fixed. It created the need for an object that reflected the beauty of its contents, and the designers of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco ages responded with glorious designs, some of the best by Emile Gallé.

Couturier Coco Chanel launched her own perfume in 1921, a mix of manmade compounds known as aldehydes and floral essences, calling it No 5 (because it was the fifth sample she tried, apparently). By then, the idea of fashion and perfume being one and the same was cemented. Scent was the essential finishing touch, something luxurious and almost magical. For a while, every dressing table had at least one bottle of perfume on it, the squeezable bulb of the atomiser often encased in woven silk like an elaborate tassel, adding mystique to the essence itself.

A further advance was made in 1947 when a Slovenian designer called Peter Florjančič designed the compact atomiser in which the whole spray mechanism was contained within the cap of the bottle. It was scooped up by American cosmetics giant Elizabeth Arden and rapidly became what we’re most familiar with today. But fashion is often contrary and the current trend is for something that appears to be handmade, with simple stoppered phials that look straight out of the perfumier’s workshop.  The popularity of perfume in whichever container remains, though, which means aspirations for a future and gentlemanship remain thoroughly intact.