The holidayGift Guide
a (fragrance) house in the city, housing the city
Discover a fantastic selection that delight the senses. For true luxury is to plunge into life… Here is a very cosmopolitan gift guide for your reading.
Written by Haera Millais
The Culture Connoisseur
"Remember the thrill of being brought to a gallery opening and being marveled by the super stylish and wonderfully perfumed artists, collectors, and scholars?"
Remember the thrill of bring brought to a gallery opening and being marveled by the super stylish and wonderfully perfumed artists, collectors, and scholars? This is one of my favourite memories from when I was little, my mom being a curator at a newly opened museum in Seoul. Thinking of that time, I wanted to make a fragrance that captures that gallery room in its magic, a mixture of sublime perfumes. Brought to life was Clementine and Edward Steal a Painting. It's now worn by a new generation of people in GLAM, a sensual but still quite elegant creation. Perfect to gift for the well-read person in your life for its great stories and intelligent fragrance composition.
Andrew Durham, Making Marie Antoinette and Sofia Coppola's syllabus in WYouth
When Sofia Coppola made Marie Antoinette, she was given rare access to the Palace of Versailles. She filled it with flower arrangements, macarons, Milena Canonero costumes and Manolo Blahnik shoes. Andrew Durham, her friend since the early ’90s, photographed all of it, on set and off, from the first days at Versailles to the Cannes premiere. He went through roughly 2,000 frames, all shot on 35mm, to build this awesome book. Anarchic films have a way of resonating with curious minds, and WYouth introduced the book to a new generation. Pair it with her syllabus for WYouth, W’s new teenage sister magazine, which began as her idea. Sofia wears Citiette.
Prototype_, Issue Zero
Alastair McKimm, the stylist who last edited i-D, spent two years making the magazine he wanted to read. Prototype_ comes out twice a year and carries no ads. It’s arranged in twelve chapters drawn from his own career and circle. There are no advertiser pages and no rotating covers, only working artists at full strength, in print.
A year of the Criterion Channel
The Criterion Collection’s own streaming service offers more than a thousand films from the Criterion and Janus library, plus a rotating lineup of Hollywood, art-house and international titles. Afterward, go down the rabbit hole of Closet Picks.
Andrew Moisey, The Photographic World Picture: A New Prehistory of Photography (Yale University Press, 2026)
A new scholarly book on the history of photography, visuality, fine art and philosophy. I studied with Professor Moisey when I was a student at Cornell, and it changed my understanding of art history and photography.
If in Paris this winter: a seat in the lecture hall
If you're in Paris this winter, there are many art history lectures available to the public. The École du Louvre, inside the Louvre Palace, runs free large lectures alongside paid auditor courses. The gift here is time, a winter afternoon swirling with the past and present.
Ruffles & Ribbons: Fashion Plates from the Time of Marie Antoinette (The Frick Collection)
Between 1778 and 1787, the Gallerie des modes et costumes français published more than 400 engravings, many of them hand-colored, recording what Paris was wearing. The Frick Art Research Library holds 370 of the original prints. This spring, twenty-four of them went on view, the first exhibition the Frick has drawn entirely from its library. The catalogue is written by curator Yifu Liu, who wears Clementine & Edward Steal a Painting.
The World Traveler
"The people around me have always led very transcultural and worldly lives, doing admirable work as diplomats, creative entrepreneurs, artists and teachers. There is a certain allure and style that's brought from such a life, and it is only right to gift the well traveled voyager something very special."
The people around me have always led very transcultural and worldly lives, doing admirable work as diplomats, creative entrepreneurs, artists and teachers. There is a certain allure and style that's brought from such a life, and it is only right to gift the well traveled voyager something very special. The World is Your Hand Cream is a completely clean and botanical pomade that nourishes winter hands with playful packaging. Great as a stocking stuffer as well.
Debauve & Gallais
When Marie-Antoinette complained that her medicine was bitter, cocoa and almond milk was set into small coin-shaped discs. She named them pistoles, after the gold coins, and in doing so he invented chocolate you eat rather than drink. The house still makes the pistoles, and the boxes are their own small treasure: ribbon-tied and reusable, in colors taken from Vigée Le Brun’s 1783 portrait of the queen.
Linden Blossom Tilleul Tea
Perfumery owes a great deal to Proust. In In Search of Lost Time, a madeleine soaked in tea brings back the narrator’s whole childhood, and with it the memory of his aunt Léonie, who used to dip the same little cake into her cup of tilleul, linden-blossom tea. It is perhaps the most famous anecdote of taste and scent returning us to a moment we believed lost. We brought that flower to life in the linden-blossom accord of Gods Wait to Delight in You. While making the perfume, I scented my letters with Gods, and drank tilleul all the while.
Custom stationery from Papier Royal
Beneath the arcades of the Palais-Royal, Papier Royal offers more than 500 papers to build personalized correspondence from, and it preserves old printing techniques. A set of your own letterhead…!
Lemaire x Topor
Sarah-Linh Tran, who co-founded Lemaire with Christophe Lemaire, co-curated Je dors beaucoup with Jos Auzende, filling the Elzévir boutique in Paris with Roland Topor’s drawings and sculptures. Lemaire carries his drawings onto blouses, skirts and scarves, along with a quilt you can wear as a skirt or sleep under.
Photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson
Cartier-Bresson is one of my favourite photographers and The Decisive Moment is of great interest to me: the photographer must watch life unfold, and click the shutter before the moment vanishes forever. The holidays are a great time to get a print of a photograph that draws you. It's very important to pay attention to the world, and to surround yourself with images that have the qualities that inspire you. This is where everything starts, including perfume!
Perhaps, a ticket
And for the truly worldly spirit, the simplest gift of all: a ticket to a destination of their choosing. The rest of this list will follow them there.
The Chic Cosmopolitan
"My understanding of true luxury was not to shield or guard, deeming something low or high culture, but to plunge into it all! To not be afraid, and immerse yourself in the world. This is what I want to share with Maison Millais."
The ultra chic cosmopolitan has places to be! Citiette was originally made as private gifts for those in the creative milieu. The divine floral bouquet and jubillant citrus sandalwood combination is charming but memorable. Funny Little Things Whsipered at Very Important Dinner Parties is dubbed Manhattan in a bottle, housing the memories of a childhood in the most incredible city in the world. There is both a youthful and sophisticated spirit to these perfumes.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen
A thoughtful museum in Copenhagen that curates one of the best exhibitions year around. Cph is also a stellar destination for design, food, and environmental initiatives, and a trip would make an incredible gift.
The Infinite Conversation, Maurice Blanchot
This text was recommended to me at university. It let me put into context, and question, what I had been working through in my lectures and research, and it kept pushing my thinking further. Perhaps the modern individual is not only well suited but should be interested in being a rigorous thinker as well. I would be touched to receive a thoughtful text for winter.
Time
Some of my most treasured memories come from someone giving me their time. Everyone is busy, so setting aside time and space for conversation, contributing to each other's sensitivities, is rather enormous. It is a more abstract gift, but I think it tops them all.
White Blouse, Hermes
My love for perfume began with what we traditionally call “men’s cologne.” That is why every Maison Millais fragrance carries a slight fougère touch: I love its intelligent balance of masculine and feminine. A crisp white shirt from Hermès (or anywhere, really), worn with a chic fragrance, buttons up a winter day nicely.
Michael Rider, Celine
Awesome scarves, bracelets, and loafers from Celine by Michael Rider. Any one of them is an easy gift to get right.
LIMITED EDITION FROM MAISON MILLAIS COMING SOON
sign up for our mailing list for early access
Thank you for reading our holiday gift guide. Very best wishes from all of team Maison Millais! Check out the holiday shop, instagram, more writing.
