The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Grandiflora began as a flower shop in Sydney's Potts Point in 1995, founded by florist Saskia Havekes. The brand's connection to perfumery came through Michael Edwards, the British fragrance expert behind Fragrances of the World. Saskia, named for Havekes herself, translates her experience selecting and arranging flowers into something you can wear. This is her vision, bottled. The perfumers, Christophe Laudamiel and Ugo Charron, worked to capture not an abstract idea of flowers but the living reality of them: stems in water, petals on damp concrete, cool air before the door closes.
The flower shop is the whole concept here. Gardenia doesn't arrive as a soliflore, it arrives as an atmosphere. The challenge with gardenia is that it resists being captured faithfully. Too much and it turns plastic, lactonic, almost offensive. Here, it's handled with precision: creamy, yes, buttery, but never heavy. The green notes, myrtle, violet leaf, water hyacinth, keep it from flattening into sweetness. Petrichor, that smell of rain on warm earth, threads through as an unexpected counterpoint. Ylang-ylang deepens the heart without overwhelming. Tasmanian boronia, intensely waxy, almost honeyed, is the Australian signature that gives the base its character.
The evolution
The opening is gardenia, a glorious, shining white floral that announces itself immediately. But alongside it, something cooler arrives: the petrichor, that atmospheric tension of rain on warm earth. The combination is unusual and compelling. Within the first hour, the ginger and pink pepper recede. Ylang-ylang takes up more space, adding depth to the gardenia rather than replacing it. The effect is rich and full, never linear. By the third hour, the florals settle. Mimosa and immortelle ground the composition against oakmoss, with Tasmanian boronia, waxy, honeyed, distinctly Australian, providing a late-stage character that surprises. The drydown is clean but warm. It doesn't disappear so much as become intimate.
Cultural impact
Saskia arrived in 2020 as a signature expression of Grandiflora's florist-rooted philosophy. For those who want the experience of a flower shop captured in a bottle, it has become a reference point. The house's approach, natural botanical materials over synthetic reconstruction, shapes how Saskia reads on skin: more living, less constructed.
