L’Ambre de Carthage by Isabey, launched in 1924, is a perfume that immediately conjures a sense of history, opulence, and mystery through its name alone. Translating from French as “The Amber of Carthage” (pronounced lahm-bruh duh kar-tahj), the fragrance draws upon a romantic vision of Carthage—an ancient city located in present-day Tunisia, once the seat of a powerful Mediterranean empire and a rival to Rome. Known for its grandeur, wealth, and ultimately, its tragic fall, Carthage has long symbolized exoticism, lost splendor, and the crossroads between East and West. By evoking this famed city, Isabey tapped into a rich cultural memory that would have resonated with the refined, world-aware women of the early 20th century.
The 1920s, known as les années folles (“the crazy years”) in France and the Jazz Age elsewhere, were a time of innovation, liberation, and artistic flourishing. Women were casting off Edwardian constraints, embracing shorter hemlines, bobbed hair, bold makeup, and new freedoms in personal expression. In perfumery, this era gave rise to richer, more sensual compositions, often inspired by the Orient—an idea both geographic and aesthetic. L’Ambre de Carthage fits squarely into this trend, with its classification as a sweet amber oriental fragrance. It was described as "exotic in its richness of odor," speaking directly to the era’s fascination with the sensual, the foreign, and the ancient.
The name L’Ambre de Carthage likely evoked for 1920s women a romantic journey—perhaps a luxurious Mediterranean voyage or imagined scenes of silks and incense wafting through palaces by the sea. It offered a form of escapism through scent, transporting the wearer to an ancient world of splendor, trade routes, and spice-laden air. A woman in 1924 may have viewed this perfume as not just an adornment, but as a portal—something more evocative and transportive than a mere accessory. It aligned with the contemporary aesthetic of exoticism in fashion, décor, and art, seen in everything from Paul Poiret’s draped tunics to the Egyptian Revival spurred by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.
