Angel by Mugler: a sweet scent that divides

A craving for sweets in an age of clean scents

In the early 1990s, nearly every perfume house was playing it safe, with clean, fresh scents that had taken over from the overpowering perfumes of the 1980s. Thierry Mugler, the fashion designer, had a different idea of what a perfume could be. He wanted a perfume that was appetizing and full of flavor, and that recalled his childhood in the smell of pastries, chocolates and caramels.

Around the same time Mugler founded a perfume company with the cosmetics group Clarins, and Angel, his first fragrance, came out in 1992. The formula is the work of Olivier Cresp, who says it was unique for him to be given carte blanche for the designer's first fragrance. It took Cresp more than six hundred trials to reach a formula he was pleased with. At its core is ethyl maltol, a synthetic flavoring compound used in confectionery that smells of cotton candy and caramel, set beside a generous dose of patchouli that cuts through the sweetness.

Slow to catch on, then a succession of faces

Angel did not become a hit overnight. It remains a polarizing scent, one that people either love or hate. Yet it opened the way for modern gourmand perfumes—scents sweet enough to eat.

From its first campaign Angel had a face: the actress and model Estelle Lefébure, followed by Jerry Hall in the mid-1990s. Later campaigns starred Naomi Watts in 2008 and Eva Mendes in 2011. In 2014 the face of Angel became Georgia May Jagger, daughter of Jerry Hall, an earlier face of the scent.

A star, a blue liquid and a bottle that refills

Angel's bottle is a five-pointed star, a shape Mugler called his fetish symbol. The liquid inside is pale blue, the color of the sky. According to Cresp, it was Mugler's favorite color, and Mugler put it in his own words: “For me, the blue of the sky is the art of achieving magic with a touch of dreamlike fantasy.”

Legend has it that, before he was famous, Mugler went to a fortune-teller who looked at his palm and saw that its lines made the shape of a star. She told him that the star meant success and that he should put it into all his work. Mugler himself spoke of the star as a lucky charm: “The star has brought me good luck since I was a child.”

The star holds more than luck: the bottle is also meant to be used again. Since 1992 it can be refilled at a fountain in stores, called The Source at first. The house says it pioneered the idea of the refill with Angel.

A new owner and a thirtieth year

The partner of those early years, Clarins, sold the Mugler brands and the Azzaro fragrances to the French group L'Oréal. The sale was announced on October 21, 2019, and L'Oréal completed it on March 31, 2020. Thierry Mugler died on January 23, 2022, at the age of 73, the year Angel turned thirty.