Giorgio Beverly Hills was the #1 US perfume in the 1980s — three owners later it was gone

Fred Hayman opened a luxury boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills in 1961. In 1981 he launched a signature women's fragrance simply called Giorgio. The launch party cost $260,000 and was hosted by Merv Griffin. By 1984 Giorgio was the best-selling perfume in America, and the fragrance business was turning over $100 million a year. The yellow-and-white striped Giorgio box became one of the most recognizable luxury icons of the decade.

In 1987 Hayman sold the Giorgio Beverly Hills brand and fragrance business to Avon for $165 million. He renamed the store Fred Hayman Beverly Hills and continued running it independently. Avon, struggling to manage a prestige brand through its direct-sales model, held Giorgio for seven years before selling it to Procter & Gamble in 1994 for $150 million.

P&G folded Giorgio into its Prestige Beauté division alongside Hugo Boss and Laura Biagiotti fragrances. The brand lost its independent marketing and distribution. P&G treated it as a portfolio asset rather than a living brand — a yellow-striped box from the 1980s that had no clear relevance to 1990s and 2000s consumers. Sales declined steadily.

The brand later became a subsidiary of Revlon, identified as BrandCo Giorgio Beverly Hills 2020 LLC in Revlon's 2022 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The original 273 Rodeo Drive boutique is now a Louis Vuitton store. The brand that invented the 'must-have perfume' of the 1980s ended as a line item in a bankruptcy court — sold three times and abandoned by each owner.