Talk:Astier de Villatte

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Launchballer (talk) 02:06, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

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• ... that Astier de Villatte revived historic perfumes using old recipes and modern technology, including Artaban, a perfume of Parthian kings that was a favorite of ancient Roman nobility?

• Source: "to bring these fragrances back to life, the duo paired ancient recipes and artifacts with state-of-the-art technology. Le Guérer provided Ropion with the actual formulas for the Ancient Egyptian and Roman perfumes, as well as the dregs of an old vial of Sand’s scent. The perfumes were precisely recreated with a modern approach, replacing ingredients no longer compliant with today’s safety regulations while maintaining each scent’s complexity, depth, and integrity. The distinct collection unearths fragrances once feared lost to time—and offers a new generation the chance to create their own olfactory portal to the past."

Surface Mag

"The project of the French company Astier de Villatte, for which the perfumer Dominique Ropion recreated George Sand's perfume, wasn't limited to Les Nuits alone. As part of the historical mini-collection, two more fragrances were added. Furthermore, they are much older: Artaban takes us to Ancient Rome, and Le Dieu Bleu takes us even farther back in time, to Ancient Egypt. Both of the fragrances, as well as Les Nuits, are the result of a collaboration with perfume historian Annick Le Guérer.

Artaban will take us to Ancient Rome, specifically the 1st century AD, when Rome and the Parthian Empire actively interacted. Artaban (also known as Artabanus, Artabanos or Ardawan in English historical literature) is the popular name of the rulers of Parthia from the Arsacid dynasty. Parthian incense was very popular with Roman nobles, which is not surprising: Parthia was considered a trendsetter in terms of perfumery in its region thanks to its rich culture and connections to India and China.

The list of ingredients for Parthian kings' perfumes was recorded by Pliny the Elder. There are slightly more than twenty of them, and not all of them are extremely exotic for the Roman Empire (for example, marjoram), but some of them were really expensive (myrrh, styrax), so Pliny the Elder condemned contemporaries for their wasteful perfumery practices."

Fragrantica

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Mike Wanchuk, Template:Did you know nominations/2023 Capita data breach
  • Comment: For 14 July/Bastille Day. I will likely be proposing other hooks.

Created by Thriley (talk). Number of QPQs required: 2. DYK is currently in unreviewed backlog mode and nominator has 218 past nominations.

Thriley (talk) 03:24, 26 June 2026 (UTC).

• ALT1...that the founders of Astier de Villatte are "inspired by the old and forgotten, and are as touched by the beauty of something found in the trash as an artwork in the Louvre"? Thriley (talk) 04:06, 26 June 2026 (UTC)
• ALT2...that the founders of Astier de Villatte find just as much inspiration in the beauty of something found in the trash as they do from an artwork in the Louvre? Thriley (talk) 16:16, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

--- @Thriley: I want to make three suggestions and hopefully get some feedback from you: 1) I like what you are trying to do with ALT1 and ALT2, and I can envision several different ways of wording it. 2) I also think that if you don't link to the brand, but instead something more commonplace or even surprising, you may get more hits. 3) Finally, I think new hooks related to the ancient Egyptian incense (which you tried above but crossed out) and a hook about the Tibetan workers might also spark interest. Viriditas (talk) 23:44, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

ALT3...that the founders of a French home goods company find just as much inspiration in "the beauty of something found in the trash as they do from an artwork in the Louvre"? Thriley (talk) 03:16, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for reviewing. Please feel free to suggest more hooks. I like your suggestions but I do hope to have something based on my alts. Thriley (talk) 03:20, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

I made my suggestions already up above in my original comment. That's the extent of it. I will finish up the review when I get home later tonight. Copyvio check shows one close paraphrase. Maybe you can fix that in the interim? Viriditas (talk) 03:44, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

@Viriditas: I paraphrased. It is now at 9.2%. Thriley (talk) 15:01, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

@Thriley: Thanks. I'm still curious, why are you opposed to something like "... that a modern French company revived a perfume of Parthian kings that was a favorite of ancient Roman nobility?" I just found it curious that you crossed out the start of a perfectly good hook. Surely, you must have your reasons. Viriditas (talk) 00:22, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I am torn. Both hooks get at a certain spirit of France. I do sort of prefer my alts, but perhaps the initial hook would draw more readers? I suggest ALT4...In 2023, a French company revived a perfume of Parthian kings that was a favorite of ancient Roman nobility? Thriley (talk) 02:24, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Only real reason I brought it up is because that's something I would click on to find out more. Viriditas (talk) 02:48, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

It is definitely intriguing. Thriley (talk) 04:20, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Any objections if I add section headings? Viriditas (talk) 22:14, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I went ahead and added them. Viriditas (talk) 01:46, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! Thriley (talk) 03:57, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Moved from draft to mainspace to nom within a single day. Long enough and sourced. Neutral and no copyvio. Hook is cited (which I verified) and interesting. No image used. QPQ complete. ALT3 is GTG followed by ALT4 or some other interesting variant. I was surprised that there was no hook here mentioning they recreated the perfume of George Sand. Please consider adding it. Some criticism that you can take or leave: I noticed there were no sections, so I went ahead and added them while also correcting typos. (Full disclosure: I made no major edits that would disqualify me from this review.) There's a lot of info about this company available online. I think you should at least mention they are a lifestyle brand, they are best known for their white ceramics (which is all they made when they started), and explain why they hired Tibetans (it's answered in many of the sources). Also, calling it a "home goods brand" is downplaying the fact that 99% of people can't afford this luxury brand and it is designed for wealthy people. I think you should come right out in the lead and call it a French luxury lifestyle brand and mention that they are known for their traditional, handcrafted white ceramic tableware. Viriditas (talk) 10:02, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your review. I'll add some more material in later today. The detail is a bit thin on what they are best known for. I'll likely add another hook as well. Thriley (talk) 13:34, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

@Thriley: One other thing I only just noticed: your paraphrasing of their distinctive, distressed look of the ceramics leaving imperfections in the glaze (speaking directly to the style and beauty of "something found in the trash") gets a bit lost in your paraphrase ("the pieces have a distinctive look showing their handmade nature with an unevenness and interruptions in the glaze showing the terracotta underneath"). Maybe you could revisit the sources again to drive this point home in the lead and in the body as it really is something that makes their product stand out. I just viewed a photo of a collection that was posted to Instagram and it truly looked like it was pulled out of the trash from a wide view. However, when you go online and look at higher resolution zooms of the same collection, you can see the craftsmanship in a bit more detail. This speaks directly to your quote, and it wasn't immediately obvious to me before. The way I thought about it was how something can look like garbage from a distance, but when you get closer to it, you can see the aesthetic value in the uneven imperfections. There's a deeper analogy here, from the way we can change our POV about the world depending on how we look at it, whether it is life, death, success, or defeat. This reminds me of kintsugi, wabi-sabi, and the Buddhist philosophy of impermanence, suffering, and emptiness behind it. Not surprisingly, we find the same connection with Astier de Villatte, with a Tibetan Buddhist monk who was one of their original craftspeople. Viriditas (talk) 23:11, 8 July 2026 (UTC)