Courrèges — Empreinte (new)
Essence
Empreinte (new) is the 2012 reissue of Courreges’ very first fragrance, the 1970/71 floral-leather chypre Empreinte. When the Lorience Group acquired the Courreges perfume license, it relaunched the heritage line in clear plastic-cylinder packaging, recreating Robert Gonnon’s landmark chypre under modern constraints. Its whole identity is defined by that original: close enough to honor it, but reshaped by IFRA-era limits on oakmoss and animalics. To understand this version is to understand it as a careful, somewhat diluted revival of a great vintage chypre - and to keep it sharply distinct from the unrelated 2021 L’Empreinte that later replaced it.
Scent Profile
Empreinte (new) is a classic floral-aldehydic chypre. It opens with crisp aldehydes over bergamot and mandarin, an effect that reads bright, soapy and sparkling.
The heart is a floral bouquet of May rose, Bulgarian rose and jasmine, rosy and full but kept elegant rather than lush. Underneath, a tamed leather facet carries the inheritance of the original’s isobutyl-quinoline-and-castoreum structure without the animalic snarl.
The base is the chypre engine: moss, patchouli and Mysore sandalwood, with the patchouli pushed forward as the signature gesture. Against the 1970 original it runs brighter and gentler - the oakmoss substitute is audible to anyone who knows the vintage, and the aldehydes have been tamped down. The overall impression is a soapy, aldehydic rose-chypre with a genuine vintage feel.
Performance
Reports are sharply divided and likely reflect batch variation across the 2012 to 2017 production window. Some wearers report excellent tenacity and a drydown that lasts all day, and the brand’s own framing claimed up to ten hours; others report longevity collapsing to under an hour and treat that as the relaunch’s central failure. The fairest reading is that the reissue traded some of the vintage’s animalic-chypre staying power for compliance and brightness. Sillage is generally moderate and refined rather than booming.
Wearing Context
This is a cool-weather, daytime-to-anytime classic-chypre proposition. The aldehydic-rose-moss profile sits in quintessential elegant-French-woman territory, and its citrus-and-aldehyde brightness makes it more morning-friendly than a heavy evening chypre. It reads feminine in the vintage sense but is genuinely unisex by modern standards - a clean, soapy, sophisticated leather-chypre a man comfortable with the genre can wear. It is a chic, polished scent rather than a sexy or cozy one.
Comparisons & DNA
Estee Lauder Azuree is the dominant reference: the shared oakmoss-and-patchouli character makes them close siblings alongside Gres Cabochard, with Empreinte the brighter, rosier and more aldehydic of the set. Against Robert Piguet Bandit, it is the reserved younger sister - clean white patent leather where Bandit is skanky and animalic. Guerlain Mitsouko comes up for its fruity-chypre warmth and peach undertone, a shared lineage Empreinte carries in a drier register. It is, crucially, nothing like the 2021 L’Empreinte, an ambroxan-driven scent often compared to Baccarat Rouge 540.
Reception
The 2012 reissue was warmly received by chypre lovers, who treat it as a rescued classic and, for longtime fans, an emotional reunion with a fragrance they thought lost. Perfume journalist Sergey Borisov framed the original as probably still the best fragrance of the brand and judged the 2012 version quite good for its price - a real chypre with crisp aldehydes, bitter green wormwood and fresh bergamot. Criticism centers almost entirely on diluted strength and weak longevity in some bottles, plus a minority who simply find aldehydic chypres old and musty. The strongest recurring sentiment is value: it delivers a credible vintage-style chypre well below vintage prices.
Versions & Reformulation
Three distinct things share this name. The original Empreinte (1970/71) is Robert Gonnon’s floral-leather chypre with oakmoss, castoreum, isobutyl-quinoline leather and a peach-melon nuance. Empreinte (new) (2012) is the Lorience-era reissue described here: close to the original but with oakmoss replaced by other mosses and the aldehydes tamped down, the basic idea retained but greatly diluted. L’Empreinte (2021), by Nicolas Beaulieu, is an entirely different ambroxan-bergamot-patchouli scent in a cherry-red bottle that shares only the name. When the line was rebuilt around ambroxan, the real Empreinte was retired.
Acquisition Notes
Empreinte (new) occupies a sweet spot, delivering a recognizable French chypre at a fraction of vintage-Empreinte prices. The 2012 EDP was sold in 30, 50 and 90 ml sizes and is now itself out of production, found chiefly on the secondhand market. If you want the classic experience at low cost and can accept a possibly diluted, possibly weak-lasting bottle, this reissue is the route; for the full animalic-chypre force, vintage is the only option, with its own condition lottery.
Notable Facts & Lore
- Empreinte means imprint or footprint and was named for the 1969 lunar footprint, fitting a couturier obsessed with the Space Age.
- The bottle’s lunar-dome cabochon cap echoed Courreges’ Moon Girl collection.
- The original ad line leaned into the conceit: many women leave an impression, but few leave an actual imprint.
- The original was reportedly at one point the third best-selling perfume in France and a genuine cult object in the former Soviet Union.
- Perfumer Robert Gonnon has a slim but distinguished resume - Metal, Anais Anais, O de Lancome, Quiproquo - which is why critics respect even the diluted reissue.
- Andre Courreges, who alongside Cardin and Rabanne brought vinyl and the mini to fashion, died in January 2016, lending the heritage fragrances a memorial weight.