Tropiques by Lancôme was launched in 1935, one of the first five perfumes created by Armand Petitjean for his newly founded house. The name Tropiques comes from the French word for “tropics,” pronounced as "troh-peek", evoking distant, sun-drenched lands and lush, untamed landscapes. The choice of name reflects Petitjean’s inspiration: the tropical port city of Bahia in Brazil. The word itself conjures images of warmth, adventure, and sensuality—steaming jungles heavy with the scent of exotic blossoms, bustling harbors filled with spices and cargo from faraway places, and languid evenings under swaying palms.
The perfume reportedly took four years to be completed. Petitjean envisioned Tropiques as a sensory voyage. He described a man in a white suit strolling along the Pernambuco harbor in the late afternoon, surrounded by the bustle of ships unloading bananas, molasses, spices, precious woods, rum, leather, and hemp—aromas intensified by the sun and mingled with the salty breath of the tide. From the heat and clamor of the port, the journey shifts to the calm shade of fragrant gardens in the residential part of town, where rare flowers bloom in luxurious stillness. The fragrance’s bottle, encircled with rope motifs and touched with fine gold, mirrored the nautical and exotic themes of its creation.
The year 1935 places Tropiques in the heart of the interwar period, often referred to as the Golden Age of perfumery. This was a time when luxury goods offered an escape from political unrest and economic recovery. In fashion, Paris led the way with bias-cut gowns, languid silhouettes, and travel-inspired resort wear that echoed a growing fascination with far-off destinations. Women of the time—particularly those of cosmopolitan or artistic circles—would have viewed a perfume named Tropiques as a passport to an exotic, romantic world they might never visit in person but could inhabit through scent.
