Denyse Beaulieu

Last updated
Denyse Beaulieu
NationalityCanadian
Alma mater Université de Montréal
Occupation(s)Writer, translator
Known forGrain de Musc
The Perfume Lover
Website graindemusc.blogspot.com

Denyse Beaulieu is a Canadian writer, translator, and instructor. She is the author of bilingual perfume blog Grain de Musc as well as the memoir The Perfume Lover: A Personal History of Scent, [1] a book about her collaboration with French perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour to create the L'Artisan Parfumeur fragrance Seville à l’Aube. [2]

Contents

Early life

Denyse Beaulieu grew up in a suburb of Montreal, Quebec. [3] She earned a master’s degree in French literature at the Université de Montréal, then moved to France to study semiology and literary history at Université Paris VII Jussieu. [4]

Career

Beaulieu's first paying job in France was as nude model. [4] She also appeared, corsetted, in Bettina Rheims's book of erotic photography, Female Trouble (which also showed actress Catherine Deneuve, musician Annie Lennox and model Kristen McMenamy). Her writing career also includes erotica: she was the ghostwriter for an erotic novel and has published hard-core erotica for a literary magazine as well as a cultural history of sexuality. [4] She was one of the translators and supervised the team of translators for the French edition of Fifty Shades of Grey series. [5]

The Perfume Lover: A Personal History of Scent is a memoir recounting Beaulieu’s work with perfumer Bertrand Dechaufour. In trading travel stories with the perfumer, Beaulieu mentioned a love affair in her youth, having met a man during Holy Week in Seville, Spain. [4] The story inspired Dechaufour and the book describes the development of the scent, Seville à l’Aube, going through 128 different versions ("modifications") until they arrived at Seville à l’Aube, which combines the orange blossoms of spring in Andalusia with the frankincense of Easter Week’s Catholic processions. [4]

Reviewing Beaulieu’s work in the Los Angeles Times , Denise Hamilton said: “She writes with penetrating intellect about perfume, gender roles, cultural signifiers, the boudoir and her Bohemian life in a style that marries Jacques Derrida with Anais Nin.” [2]

Related Research Articles

Régine Robin was a historian, novelist, translator and professor of sociology. Her prolific fiction and non-fiction, primarily on the themes of identity and culture and on the sociological practice of literature, earned a number of awards, including the Governor-General's Award in 1986. She was described by Robert Saletti as "Montreal's grande dame of postmodernism".

Patricia Claxton is a Canadian translator, primarily of Quebec literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olivia Giacobetti</span> French perfumer

Olivia Giacobetti is a French perfumer. She has an independent line called Iunx and has also created fragrances for Diptyque, L'Artisan Parfumeur, Guerlain, and Hermès, among other lines. She is particularly known for a refined style as well as innovation such as her novel use of fig in perfumery, popularizing the note beginning in the mid-1990s. She is among the perfumers who became prominent in a late-20th and early-21st-century turn toward the "nose" behind the scent and independent lines that foreground these creators, a shift away from perfumes sold by fashion labels or celebrities in other fields.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">L'Artisan Parfumeur</span> Perfume company

L'Artisan Parfumeur is a French niche perfume house owned by Puig company from Spain, which also owns British perfume house Penhaligon's.

Bertrand Duchaufour is a French perfumer. He has had a prolific career, beginning in Grasse at Lautier Florasynth and continuing for a number of fragragrance firms as well as working independently and as the house perfumer for L'Artisan Parfumeur. He has drawn praise for niche perfume creations as well as mainstream hits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Leclerc</span>

Francis Leclerc is a Canadian film and television director, screenwriter and film editor. He is the son of Félix Leclerc. Since 1995 he has worked in the Quebec film industry, directing music videos for many well-known Quebec artists. He has directed more than 20 short and medium-length films, including a television adaptation of Robert Lepage’s Les Sept branches de la rivière Ota. He directed and co-wrote his critically acclaimed debut feature, A Girl at the Window , in 2001. His second feature, Looking for Alexander , a nuanced and mature work about lost memory and childhood tragedy, secured him Genie Awards for best director and screenplay as well as the Prix Jutra for direction.

Françoise Bertrand, is a Canadian business personality. She is the first woman to head a North American television network, as CEO and president of Télé-Québec, and was the first woman to serve as chairperson of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), a position she held from 1996 to 2001. Bertrand was inducted into the National Order of Quebec in 2008 and appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2013. She has served as president and CEO of Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec from 2003 to 2016, the first woman to hold the position. She is currently the first woman to serve as Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Via Rail Canada Inc., a position she has held since April 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Babani</span>

Babani, founded in Paris in 1894 by Vitaldi Babani, was a fashion house based on the Boulevard Haussmann specialising in imported exotic goods, including artworks and handicrafts, and from the 1910s onwards, original garments inspired by their imported merchandise. The business closed in 1940.

Claudine Bertrand is a Quebec educator and poet.

Denyse Benoit is a Canadian actress, director and screenwriter from Montreal, Quebec. She is mostly known for La Crue (1977), La belle Apparence (1979) and Le dernier Havre (1986).

Pierre 'Frédéric' Serge Louis Jacques Malle is a French businessman, author and 'Editeur de Parfums' who founded the perfume house Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle in 2000.

Martine Époque was a French-born Canadian dance educator and choreographer living in Quebec.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuri Gutsatz</span>

Yuri Gutsatz,, was a perfumer. He emigrated to Berlin in 1924 and then to Paris in 1933 where he worked for the Parfums de Mury. After the Second World War, he was hired by Louis Amic at Roure Bertrand Fils and Justin Dupont. As a perfumer, he created many perfumes like Carven Chasse Gardée in 1950. and PM of Mary Quant. He participated in perfume projects for Ungaro and Estee Lauder as well as for Cartier, Dior and Van Cleef & Arpels. On December 12, 1975, he registered the trademark Le Jardin Retrouve and founded the first niche perfume house, a few months before the I'Artisan Parfumeur (1976). Yuri Gutsatz was also a perfume critic and vice president of the Société Française des Parfumeurs, and one of the founders of Osmothèque- the perfume conservatory-, in 1990 with Jean Kerleo.

Claire Beaulieu is a Canadian artist. She works in the fields of painting, sculpture, installation and drawing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francine Descarries</span> Canadian sociologist (b. 1942)

Francine Descarries is a Canadian sociologist. She is a professor of sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She is considered a leading figure in feminist studies in Quebec.

Niche perfume is an alternative to mass perfume production. Niche is limited by the clientele and therefore with a limited sale range, thus the goal of niche houses is not to sell as much as possible.

Aedes de Venustas is a niche perfume store and fragrance line. Aedes has operated in Manhattan since 1995. The house perfume line launched in 2012, although there was an earlier collaboration with L'Artisan Parfumeur creating a home fragrance (2005) and perfume (2008) also named Aedes de Venustas.

Estelle Hecht was a Jewish Canadian engraver, painter and gallerist from Montreal, Quebec. She ran the print gallery Gallery 1640 which she founded in 1961. She studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and was trained by drawing professors Jacques de Tonnancour, Arthur Lismer, and Moses "Moe" Reinblatt in engraving. She died in the fire that destroyed her art gallery in 1971.

Denyse Baillargeon, born in Verdun in 1954, is a Canadian historian and specialist in the social history of women, the family, and health in Québec. She was a professor of history at the Université de Montréal from 1994 to 2018.

References

  1. "The Perfume Lover: A Personal History of Scent". Publishers Weekly. November 5, 2012. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  2. 1 2 Hamilton, Denise (2012-05-20). "Scent perfumes their pages". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2020-10-26. Retrieved 2020-10-23.
  3. Druckerman, Pamela (2013-04-12). "Scents and Sensibilities". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Stover, Laren (19 March 2013). "Revealing a Lot, Aromatic and Otherwise". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  5. Vincelot, Sophie (July 28, 2015). "50 Nuances de Grey: une traduction marathon". Le Figaro (in French). Archived from the original on 2015-08-04. Retrieved 2021-02-01.