Putting on the spritz: Notes on a fragrance dynasty

Bayly Ledes in her office with a life-size bottle of Fracas. COURTESY OF ROBERT PIGUET PARFUMS

Isabelle Daviau, left, and her mother, perfume proprietress Bayly Ledes, sampling new fragrances at Le Bon Marché department store in Paris, France.  COURTESY OF ROBERT PIGUET PARFUMS

By JOYCE CORRIGAN  

Bayly Ledes may have her mother’s eyes, but unmistakably her father’s nose. The priceless bequest that John Ledes, longtime Katonah resident, beauty industry legend and perfume proprietor, left to his beloved daughter when he passed in 2019 wasn’t a palace, a Picasso, or a Porsche, but the classic white floral fragrance known as “Fracas.”

One of the world’s most famous scents, its A-list fan girls include Madonna, Iman, Bianca Jagger, Sofia Coppola and Bedford’s own Martha Stewart. Alternative rock icon Courtney Love once explained her devotion: “No one can ignore you when you’re wearing it.”

“Just please don’t call us the Fracas family,” Ledes laughed, explaining that, as president and CEO since 2014 of Fashion Fragrances & Cosmetics LTD, the company behind Robert Piguet Parfums, and owner for the past six, she now oversees the iconic global brand’s portfolio of 20 perfumes. That includes many iterations of the original Fracas, created in 1948, as well as cult favorites Bandit and V.

“Since I’ve been president, I’ve introduced nine new scents, with another four coming next year including a new exclusive fragrance for Harrods.” 

In 2024, Bayly spearheaded the launch of Fracas Eau Fraîche, a lighter, playful, more youthful take on the original, encased in a hot pink bottle contrasting with the flagship Fracas’ black. Barbie fans took note.

And while originally resisting Amazon’s call, Ledes was recently won over by the global e-commerce giant’s offer to establish her firm as the exclusive Fracas seller on Amazon. “It’s been a game-changer,” she smiled.

“We’re like an 80-year-old startup,” Ledes said at a favorite coffee shop within walking distance of her Katonah office. “Dad wanted to keep the company private and the management small, committed to quality. But he was also a visionary who insisted on innovating.” Always with a whiff of mischief. With its unique ability to influence perceptions of an individual’s taste, sophistication, and modernity, perfume’s soft power can never be underestimated.

Ledes said she’s inspired every day by the legacy of French couturier–turned–perfumer Robert Piguet, who empowered women before it was “a thing.”

“In 1944, he hired Germaine Cellier, a trailblazing woman in a male-dominated field, to develop Bandit — a daring blend of leather, galbanum and oakmoss. “It was a little gift of luxury for women who were suffering through the war, many working in factories every day,” Ledes recounted.

Four years later, Cellier created the darker, more complex Fracas, which relied heavily on the rich and opulent tuberose, layered with jasmine, gardenia and subtle woody undertones. Before 1948, women’s perfumes were typically powdery and discreet; with Fracas, the innovative Cellier created something unmistakably feminine, but equally audacious and assertive. 

For all its global reach, Robert Piguet Parfums is considered “niche,” in that each scent is an artistic, small-batch creation that prioritizes olfactory creativity over mass appeal, featuring unusual ingredients and innovative formulations. Ledes intends to keep it that way. 

“Women are much better informed about what they put on their skin these days,” she said. “They trust us to formulate our fragrances in compliance with evolving global regulations — regarding allergens, for example — and to prioritize rare, high-quality ingredients over mass commercial trends.” 

But never confuse niche with negligible. According to forecaster Business Research Insights, the luxury-niche perfume segment is projected to grow from about $2.75 billion in 2025 to over $10.6 billion by 2035.

A graduate of Phillips Andover Academy and Brown, where she majored in communications, Ledes also spent a pivotal period in the late 1990s as ELLE Magazine’s beauty director, revolutionizing its fragrance and cosmetics coverage by launching Elle.com in the early digital era. She also contributed articles to The New York Times and Vogue.com.

But it was at home where she learned firsthand about perfume’s powers of persuasion. 

“My father was a pioneer in the global beauty and fragrance world, founding the March of Dimes Beauty Ball and launching two of the most influential industry magazines. He was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the legendary Madame Guerlain in 2004,” she said. “He was a Greek American who fancied himself a true French gentleman, and his dreams were realized beyond his wildest expectations.” 

Self-made John Ledes was a graduate of Yale and Columbia universities, and a proud Marine who just happened to have a sultan’s appetite for scent.

“Dad was famous for dousing himself with every new fragrance,” his daughter recalled, “And always cut quite a figure in his crisp blue blazer, holding court in the bar car of the old diesel train from Katonah to Grand Central, always leaving a trail of elegant cologne.”

The father-daughter relationship was built on a deep sense of trust. “He knew fragrance was in my blood, and there was nothing I’d rather do than work with perfumers to develop and market new scents. I still feel that way,” she said.

That the Ledes fragrance legacy will long linger became even clearer when Bayly Ledes’s daughter, Isabelle Daviau, a 2023 graduate of John Jay High School, enrolled in the prestigious Fragrances & Cosmetics Management program at Istituto Marangoni in Paris. “I was truly surprised,” Ledes recalled, “and delighted, of course. It was completely her idea. And she’s loving Paris, needless to say.” 

Ledes is married to French-born artisan metalsmith Fabrice Daviau, and together this bi-national family regularly travels back and forth.  

Daviau’s own career prospects are evidently bright. She alone secured her first internship last summer at Hermès Parfums in Manhattan. And yes, she has her mother’s nose.