Yuri Gutsatz – Page 3 – Le Jardin Retrouvé Blog

In History

Why Yuri Gutsatz is the father of niche perfumery

20/07/2019 1 Comment

Did you know that Le Jardin Retrouve was the first niche perfume house in the world? Yuri Gutsatz didn’t follow trends, he started them.
After several years in India, Yuri returned to Paris and felt frustrated that perfumers were still so anonymous, and that fragrances could only be produced by and for large companies. He felt this stifled the true nature of creativity in perfumers.
So what did he do? He founded Le Jardin Retrouve, the first niche perfume house. He ran the business from his Paris home, aided by his loyal wife Arlette and their sons. A year later, L’Artisan Parfumeur followed suit and after that, many more small indie brands came into being, but Le Jardin Retrouve was the very first, and we have Yuri’s pioneering spirit to thank for that. Every one of our fragrances is made from Yuri’s original formula: all timeless classics that don’t compromise their integrity to meet passing trends and fads.
Not only was Yuri the first perfumer to start his own brand, he was also the first to add accessories to the fragrances, such as matching lotions and soap. Prior to this, he was the first perfumer to fragrance an entire opera house! And did we mention that he was a co-founder of the world famous Osmotheque?

Today, we are guardians of his hundreds of formulae and we are proud to continue his work so that the world can appreciate his talent, even after he has gone.

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In History

How Yuri helped scent the Sixties with Mary Quant

23/04/2019 No Comments

At London’s famous Victoria and Albert Museum, you’ll find a breath-taking exhibition opening today, 6 ^th April and running until February 2020. Yuri was the creator of one of Mary Quant’s earliest fragrances, PM. With an AM and a perfume PM, the advert told women to “two time him” with both. Sadly, it’s now discontinued, although a collectors’ item among connoisseurs.
We were just too late to meet the call for exhibits. The Garden Found would have happily recreated PM from the original formula. We take a great pride on how you can get your work done in the USA, France, and even Swinging London! Not bad for the chemist’s sound from St Petersburg.

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In Did You Know?

The Legends with No Name

11/03/2019 No Comments

“Oh,Perfumer! your name is no-one” wrote Yuri Gutsatz in 1979. When Yuri was immersed in his career, he and his fellow hard working noses, were kept out of the picture. Why? Because the couture houses who were launching fragrances encouraged a touch of mystique surrounding their scents. If that led their customers to believe their perfumes were created by couturiers and not perfumers, well, that was fine by them. But can you imagine Yuri and his contemporaries being ignored today?

Germaine Cellier created Fracas, Bandit and Miss Balmain. Jean Carles created Miss Dior, Shocking and Ma Griffe. Yuri himself created what later became Chromatics for Estee Lauderand Chasse Gardée for Carven (both sadly discontinued).

Luckily in 2019, we can appreciate their genius with the gratitude and the credit that they all deserve (and this is why at Le Jardin Retrouvé we put Yuri Gutsatz’s name on the bottles – and Maxence Moutte’s name on the Mousse Mystique candle he created for us).

Perfumer, your name matters.

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In History

Yuri Gutsatz, sensitive child torn from his land

13/06/2018 No Comments

Yuri was born in Saint Petersburg in 1914 in a bourgeois and intellectual family of publishers. Between the ages of five and ten, he learned the value of knowledge and languages from his family, and in school, was nurtured in the idealistic precepts of the early years of the Bolshevik Revolution. These experiences gave him a lasting sense of justice, of fraternity, and a love of poetry.
In 1924, Yuri, his mother and his paternal grandparents emigrated to Berlin. His father, David, stayed in the Soviet Union to save his family. Yuri was to be enrolled in the most prestigious school in the city for which his level of knowledge was largely sufficient to be admitted. The day he was invited for an interview, Yuri saw a teacher hit a student. That was something he could not accept, and he decided to flunk the entrance exam out of integrity. He studied in a lesser-known school, but one that was better adapted to his personality and belief in the humane.
TO BE CONTINUED…

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