The Maison Legacy
Barbara Wilson
My mother. My first fragrance.
She taught me refinement, quiet beauty, and the art of being remembered by the scent you leave behind.
Aunt Margene
The woman behind the perfume counter.
She opened the world of scent to me — the elegance, the mystery, the ritual.
Barbara & Virgil
Young love, captured in time.
Their story lives in the warmth and soul of every fragrance I create.
The Wilson Sisters (Franklin Park)
The elegance, confidence, and legacy I come from.
These women are the notes beneath every creation.
My beautiful aunts, Beverly and Betty, are in this photo. It looks to be from the 1960s — and aren’t they stunning?
My beautiful aunt Betty Wilson — always elegant, always with her lipstick. Columbus, Ohio.
My father, Virgil Hollingsworth, Sr., was one of the few college-educated Black men in management at Western Electric. His presence, confidence, and focus shaped how I understood excellence.
My father, Virgil Hollingsworth, Sr. (Burberry Trench)— a truly fashionable gentleman. His suits were custom, and that trench coat was Burberry. Yes, that’s my daddy. He bought me my first luxury fragrance. Columbus, Ohio, circa 1979.
The Root of It All
Love is the First Fragrance
I have always believed that the first fragrance we truly recognize is love.
Mine arrived in 1964, wrapped in the soft beauty of my mother, Barbara — the woman I made a mother for the very first time. That was my introduction to scent, to tenderness, to womanhood. Motherhood had a smell, and I fell in love with it.
As life unfolded, I began
I have always believed that the first fragrance we truly recognize is love.
Mine arrived in 1964, wrapped in the soft beauty of my mother, Barbara — the woman I made a mother for the very first time. That was my introduction to scent, to tenderness, to womanhood. Motherhood had a smell, and I fell in love with it.
As life unfolded, I began to understand that fragrance would one day become my language — not all at once, but slowly, through the moments and experiences that shaped me.
My first purchase came from the Woolworth’s on High Street in Columbus, Ohio — a four-pack of tiny 5mL bottles named violet, rose, things I couldn’t yet pronounce but could already feel. They were inexpensive, simple, hardly more than scented water — but to me, they were possibility.
After that came Love’s Baby Soft, Gloria Vanderbilt, the “big splurge” of Red — and suddenly I was a girl with a fragrance wardrobe.
And, of course, there was my mother’s dresser.
A curated kingdom of sophistication: Secret of Venus, Donna Karan’s Chaos, Obsession by Calvin Klein. I would sneak a spray or two before school and feel beautiful, confident, seen.
SereneB.,
Parfumeuse de Vérité
Happy 16th Birthday
By eleven, I was spending my allowance on glossy magazines — Elle, WWD, Vogue France — long before I truly understood the fashion world they represented. I lived for the days when fragrance strips would fall from the pages, teaching me what beauty felt like in other parts of the world.
When I was fifteen, a Dior Dioressence strip slipped i
By eleven, I was spending my allowance on glossy magazines — Elle, WWD, Vogue France — long before I truly understood the fashion world they represented. I lived for the days when fragrance strips would fall from the pages, teaching me what beauty felt like in other parts of the world.
When I was fifteen, a Dior Dioressence strip slipped into my hands and changed everything. I wanted it. I needed it. I asked for it.
And on my sixteenth birthday, my father Virgil placed that bottle in front of me at Mario’s International Restaurant. A moment so simple, yet it carved a permanent pathway in my spirit. I believed I would become a perfumer straight out of college.
Ohio State had other ideas.
I was told I wasn’t “equipped” for chemistry.
Not equipped for broadcast journalism.
Told I didn’t have “the look.”
Told no, again and again.
I was redirected — Home Economics, then courses I never imagined — until a Black History class with Dr. Shipley captured my heart and held it for a season.
But life has its own scent trail.
Domestic violence found me on campus, and suddenly the bright future I imagined dimmed into fear and silence. There were no resources for young women then — or at least none I knew. I didn’t have language for what I was living through; only the heaviness of being muted, unheard, and profoundly alone. Fragrance became my refuge. Writing became my lifeline.
It took years to leave that relationship.
It followed me — or perhaps I followed it — from Ohio to Atlanta to Chicago.
Chaos. Shame. Forgiveness. Survival.
And yet, through it all, GOD kept me.
SereneB.,
Parfumeuse de Vérité
Legacy Matters
Legacy Matters
Somewhere along that journey, the chemistry I was told I was not capable of learning found its way into my hands anyway. Not from a classroom, but from lived experience, memory, emotion, faith, and the stories of our women. My nose became my compass. My sensitivity became my strength. My courage became my formula.
I created my first fragra
Somewhere along that journey, the chemistry I was told I was not capable of learning found its way into my hands anyway. Not from a classroom, but from lived experience, memory, emotion, faith, and the stories of our women. My nose became my compass. My sensitivity became my strength. My courage became my formula.
I created my first fragrances for my daughters.
And then, slowly and bravely, I created for the world.
I am the mother of four beautiful daughters who have made this fragrance journey joyful, challenging, honest, and unforgettable. They are my fiercest critics and my greatest loves. My prayer is that I leave a fragrant path behind me, one that teaches them to live boldly, fully, and without apology.
SANCTUAIRE DE FLEURS exists because I survived.
Because our stories matter.
I often imagine my Aunt Margene behind the Lazarus fragrance counter, her warm, knowing smile lifting a bottle from this maison the way she once lifted the classics. In my mind, she is spritzing it softly into the air, sharing it with the women in her path, just as she always did. And my prayer is that she, and all the perfume ladies who shaped me, can somehow smell these fragrances now. Their legacy lives here.
Because the lineage of Black women, from my mother Barbara to my Aunt Margene at the Lazarus fragrance counter, deserves to be held in luxury.
This is my sanctuary.
This is our sanctuary.
A fragrance house built from legacy, memory, and truth, told one extrait at a time.
Thank you for joining the SANCTUAIRE DE FLEURS journey with me.
SereneB.,
Parfumeuse de Vérité