It all started back in 1936, the year before the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Dr. Mavromati set up his dispensary on Rue Fontaine, in Paris’ 9th arrondissement. In his back room, he formulated a handful of products that he shared with the neighborhood’s ladies, who were delighted to find a pharmacist with an interest in their complexions right on their doorstep.

That same year, France’s workers flocked to the beaches thanks to the country’s very first paid vacations. A series of gorgeous watercolors captured this chapter in history, immortalizing the iconic beach huts that would serve as the inspiration for Matis’ suncare range many years later.

After the war, Paris was liberated, and Matis made its comeback. In 1946, Dr. Mavromati’s son took over, keeping his father’s Parisian dispensary while working on new formulas in a garage in Neuilly. Formerly employed at L’Oréal, he had a passion for cosmetics, and drew on his family’s Greek roots and surname to develop his very first eye contour products, with the word for eyes / gaze being μάτια [matia] in Greek.