Le Jardin Retrouvé:

was founded in 1975 by Yuri GUTSATZ (1914-2005), Perfume - Composer, who spent the greater part of his career working in one of the most prestigious French companies producing aromatic products.

Le Jardin Retrouvé with its limited production, is an attempt to return to the artisanal sources from which perfumery originated, with all that it implies in terms of patience and love of a thing well done.

I had never heard of this brand when his son, Denis Gutsatz, sent a number of samples which were passed along for me to try, then report back on as a guest blogger.  He is working to keep his father’s legacy alive.

Yuri Gutsatz was born in Russia and relocated to France after the revolution. There, largely self-taught, he worked in the laboratories of Maison Mury.

After WWII he studied more formally in Grasse, the center of French parfumery. While there he met Jean Carles who later invited him to Roure and introduced him to Louis Amic, the owner.  Gutsatz along with a small group of other perfumers...

produced almost all the perfumes for the grand houses of Jacques Fath, Nina Ricci, Carven, Balmain, Balenciaga and Piguet. For Gutsatz those were the golden years of perfumery, and its most bright star his co-worker, Germaine Celier, whom he graciously thought of as "...the most talented of us all."

(Divina, Fragrance Bouquet)

Gutzatz, a talented writer, expressed openly what other perfumers thought but might have been afraid to say aloud.   After all, you have to create perfumes no matter how perfunctory, in order to be a parfumer!

He sounded the alarm early on, and we are seeing and living the results of dumbing down the conceptual idea of perfumes – not helped at all by the changes required by removing certain notes from fragrances necessitating formula changes.

"More and more, the (perfumery) business is concentrated in the hands of huge corporations whose vocations more resemble oil drilling than fields of roses".

(Extract of Yuri Gutsatz' speech: Parfumeur, ton nom est Personne (Perfumer, Your Name is Nobody).)

Or:

"Perfumery is part of the social and economic environment it lives in. Class and refinement are no longer the predominant trends of our time and will certainly not be in the future."

(Extract of the speech at the Création & Marketing Conference.)

What do you suppose he would think about the majority of department store brands today, with seemingly every celebrity bringing out a fragrance, which will hardly make a mark before disappearing from consciousness?

When he started his own company, he created the concept of niche and artisan fragrances before they became popular in our time frame.

I look forward to trying his scents and sharing them with you.

Have you tried any of his fragrances? If not: Ask Them for Free Samples - Tout autour du Monde - All around the world.

Best,
Karin

This post is by Karin of Savvy Thinker, guest blogger. Karin loves perfumes, especially vintage or artisan. She has a wide range of interests including but not limited to books, cosmetics, business, and jewelry, including beading.

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Guest Blogger, Le Jardin Retrouvé, Perfume, Perfume Fragrances, Perfume Review, Yuri Gutsatz

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aromatic products, Balenciaga, Balmain, bright star, Carven, co worker, conceptual idea, dumbing down, french companies, germaine, Germaine Celier, grand houses, Gutsatz, Jacques Fath, Jean Carles, Le Jardin Retrouvé, Louis Amic, mury, Nina Ricci, ouis, parfumer, perfumers, perfumery, Piguet, talented writer, yuri, Yuri Gutsatz