Sudhir Gupta: Rare Collection of Factices

World’s Biggest Collection of Fragrance Bottles

 

Over the past 30 years, Sudhir Gupta amassed the world’s biggest collection of fragrance bottle factices – the large, exquisitely crafted replicas of perfume bottles used for display in department stores.  Among the highlights from his collection of more than 3,000 specimens are a rare 1920s Baccarat factice for the Caron fragrance Madame Alexander, estimated to be valued at $100,000, as well as a rare 1970s Estée Lauder Aliage factice. An exceptional Parera factice from 1927 is one of only two in the world; the other is on display at the Museu del Perfum in Barcelona.

 

Baccarat, Lalique & Guerlain

 

Once made of fine etched glass of the type utilized by artisans of houses like Baccarat, Lalique and Guerlain, factices are rarely produced like that today, and Gupta considers them significant historical objects. This lifelong passion was ignited when he spotted a L’Air du Temps by Nina Ricci factice in the basement of a perfume shop where he worked as a penniless grad student in the early 1990s. Captivated by the classic bottle with its intertwined frosted glass doves, he was determined to obtain it despite its $2,000 price tag. “I found this bottle from the postwar era, collecting dust on the floor in a corner of the room,” Gupta says. “I get goosebumps every time I talk about that. I didn’t know what it was, but I still remember.”

 

That remarkable discovery in that dusty basement on Canal Street was the start of what became a true obsession. It took him a long time to purchase that bottle. Earning $200 per week, he saved and saved, and once he had the money, the store’s owners actually refused to sell it to him. “They laughed at me and said, ‘What is a poor boy like you going to do with something like that!’” He eventually snagged his prize by enlisting the help of a family friend to buy it for him.

 

Guinness World Records

 

From that day, factices became his passion, and in the ensuing years, any money he saved went to buying these special bottles. And now his collection has made it into the Guinness World Records as the world’s largest.

 

An immigrant from India who came to New York to pursue graduate studies in engineering, Gupta was from a poor family. “I never had any aspirations; I was not going to clubs, I don’t drink,” he says. “So, I spent my free time searching flea markets and old pharmacies for factices. I didn’t have a car, so sometimes I had to go on the train and carry them home. Some days, I would just walk to make sure they wouldn’t get broken.”

 

Eau de Luxe : Inc’s Hall of Fame

 

Derived from the French word for ‘fake’, these artistic glass masterpieces were glamorous advertisements for the iconic fragrances they represented. Obtaining and maintaining a factice collection requires money. “I had to store those bottles,” Gupta says. “That really inspired me to make money.” His succinct assessment of his commercial capabilities: “I was never a businessman.” In fact, in 2010, he was on the verge of bankruptcy. By 2008, he’d poured all his resources into a retail fragrance store in Westchester that quickly went belly up amidst the financial crisis. Gupta repositioned the company, Eau de Luxe, as an online fragrance and cosmetics wholesaler in 2010, and by 2014, it was named one of Inc. magazine’s Top 500 Fastest Growing Companies in the United States. Eau de Luxe remained on that Inc. Top 500 list for five consecutive years, a rare feat, achieving Hall of Fame status in 2018.

 

Chanel, Dior, Armani, Jo Malone, Tom Ford, & Lancôme

 

Offering fragrance and skincare products from world-renowned brands like Chanel, Dior, Armani, Jo Malone, Tom Ford, Lubin, Robert Piguet, Guerlain, Lancôme, Kiehls, By Kilian, Clinique and Arquiste, in 2017, eaudeluxe.com was recognized by Crain’s Business as one of the 50 Fastest Growing Companies in New York.  “It’s my passion for perfume bottles that landed me there, not my passion for perfume.”

 

Facticerie – The Factice Collection

 

It is Gupta’s dream to preserve the vestiges of the dying art of factices and to keep these pieces of history alive for new generations of fragrance lovers. He has long wanted to share his collection with the public. “I thought, ‘I want to open a gallery and bring my message to the people.’” His partner, Mercedes Acosta, a jewelry designer, surprised him and created a “museum” to house the collection. Located in his store in Hackensack, NJ, the exhibition space houses a meticulously re-created interior of Lascoff Drugs, an Upper East Side institution that closed in 2012 after 113 years in business.

 

Lascoff’s Tiffany lamps, apothecary jars, wooden cabinetry and ornate brass cash register provide a striking and historically accurate setting for the collection. Maison G, a perfume store, is also a part of the complex.

 

The collection is now open to the public by appointment only. For more information, or to schedule a visit, please go to facticerie.com