In a sense, I was influenced by Après L'Ondée (1906). I love Guerlain fragrances, but I said to myself that, if I were to make Après L'Ondée today, it would be much lighter, airier, younger. Some pieces I wouldn't use. So Paris started as an imagined Après L'Ondée. Obviously, in Après L'Ondée, you don't have roses in the background, but I had the skeleton of a very creamy violet note. Then I worked on the rose to put with it.
That's perfumer Sophia Grojsman talking about the genesis of Yves Saint Laurent Paris (from Michael Edwards' Perfume Legends: French feminine fragrances, p. 200), her first fragrance. Paris debuted in 1983, and was the perfect fragrance for the time: I wore it, my mother wore it, some days it seemed like everyone wore it (and plenty of it, more about which below).
Paris opens fruity and bright and big, with a happy, optimistic air. The heart is lush, jammy roses softened by Grojsman's “creamy violet note”. Yves Saint Laurent had reportedly chosen the name Paris and the color pink before the fragrance was developed…
Rose Alexandrie and Vétiver Babylone have joined 
I have always had a soft spot for Valentine's Day. I can't help but feel that there must be just a little bit of magic in anything that brings deep rose, burgundy and crimson colors into the heart of a fluffy white snow-filled February. Small but decadent boxes of chocolate beckon, velvety red petals abound, a brief moment in time where one is allowed to be unabashedly romantic if one wishes….