From Cure to Couture: The Reclassification of Perfume in Early Modern France 1680–1790

This paper examines how perfume in early modern France was reclassified from a therapeutic substance within medical practice to a luxury commodity associated with fashion, hygiene, and social distinction. In the late seventeenth century, perfumes were embedded in pharmacological traditions and were used as technologies of air purification and bodily protection within humoral and miasmatic medical frameworks. By the eighteenth century, however, transformations in medical authority, court culture, and public health practices gradually displaced aromatics from the center of prophylaxis. As new sanitary policies emphasized ventilation, drainage, and deodorization rather than aromatic masking, perfumes increasingly migrated into the domains of courtly consumption and personal toilette. Through analysis of pharmacological texts, medical debates, court culture, and commercial practices, this paper argues that perfume’s shift from cure to couture reflects a broader reconfiguration of medical authority, sensory culture, and consumer identity in early modern France.