Coty Inc. has emerged as a major success story in the world of beauty. But its success is not new.

A native of Corsica, 29-year-old François Coty founded the fragrance company that would bear his name, in Paris in 1904.  Determined to revolutionize a fragrance industry that had seen little change during the 19th century, Coty set about reinventing the perfumer's fragrance palette.  He developed Perfume City in 1909, a residential villa that was transformed into a grand industrial complex.  Over time, Perfume City grew and by 1920, Coty owned and controlled all aspects of his fragrance production, including flower fields, packaging factories, print shops and delivery vehicles.

Coty understood that to succeed on a larger scale, he needed to reach a wider audience.  His strategy was simple: offer a product of rich appearance that was affordable at a variety of price points.  To this end, Coty commissioned artists and manufacturers, such as René Lalique and the Glassworks of Baccarat, to design affordable beauty products imbued with luxurious quality never previously available to the masses.  The strategy worked and perfume quickly became an international mass-market luxury product.

Coty expanded his company beyond the borders of his native France.  In 1912, he opened subsidiaries in New York and London, an important move for the company, as at the end of World War I, many soldiers returned home with gifts of French perfume for their loved ones.  This led to a demand for Coty products in the U.S.  During the 1920s, Coty continued to diversify and secured a substantial hold on the Italian, Swiss, German, Spanish and South American markets. By 1925, an estimated 36 million women in Europe and the Americas used his products.

François Coty continued to direct this empire until his death in 1934. “One thing eluded me,” he confessed in the same year. “I never managed to capture the smell of honeysuckle.” It's one of the very few things that eluded perfumery's first genius.

Today, Coty is a leading global beauty company. After more than one hundred years in the business, Coty continues to draw on the creative, entrepreneurial and visionary legacy of its founder and, more recently Bernd Beetz, Chief Executive Officer of Coty Inc. Both visionaries have dramatically shaped and re-shaped the future of the company and the beauty industry itself.