Heritage
A house, in its own words
Barbara Herman spent years immersed in vintage perfumery before launching Eris Parfums. Between 2008 and 2014, she documented her passion through yesterdaysperfume.com, a blog dedicated to exploring discontinued and hard-to-find vintage fragrances. Her expertise in historical perfumery led her to author "Scent and Subversion: Decoding a Century of Perfume," published in 2014, which examined how perfume reflects cultural movements and social change throughout the twentieth century. The book established her voice as a perfume historian capable of translating olfactory history into accessible cultural commentary. Her deep knowledge of vintage compositions, particularly those from houses like Caron, Patou, and Balenciaga, informed her desire to create something new that honored perfume's rebellious past while speaking to contemporary sensibilities. In 2016, Herman founded Eris Parfums in New York City, channeling her collector's eye and historian's knowledge into a proprietary fragrance line. The brand name itself signals her intent. Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos, was left off the guest list for Peleus's wedding, and in revenge she sparked the events that led to the Trojan War. Herman has spoken about finding beauty in troublemakers and outsiders, using the brand as a vehicle to celebrate figures who exist outside conventional beauty standards. The house released its first fragrances in 2016, including Night Flower and Ma Bete, establishing a template of oppositional naming and unexpected composition that would define subsequent releases. As the collection expanded through 2017 and beyond, Herman maintained a focused approach, releasing new fragrances periodically rather than flooding the market with constant newness.
Eris Parfums operates from a philosophy of deliberate disruption. The brand rejects the notion that fine fragrance should smell pleasant or inoffensive by default. Instead, each composition embraces complexity, sometimes deploying animalic notes, unusual accords, or challenging combinations that demand attention from the wearer. Herman has described wanting to create perfumes for people who find conventional beauty boring, perfumes that function almost as olfactory declarations of independence. The brand's tagline, celebrating unconventional beauty and subversive glamour, captures this ethos directly. The muses who inspire Eris fragrances are not figures of conventional grace or polish. They are outsiders, rule-breakers, women who operate on their own terms regardless of social approval. This conceptual framework guides both the names and the olfactory identities of the fragrances. Eris perfumes do not aim for mass appeal or instant likability. They ask something of the wearer, rewarding attention and openness to scent as a medium for genuine self-expression. The brand's approach extends to its limited release strategy. Rather than pursuing wide distribution, Eris maintains a focused identity, making choices about availability that reinforce its position as a niche house operating outside mainstream fragrance culture.