AUTHOR –  YURI GUTSATZ

Yuri Gutsatz, (born July 6, 1914, in St. Petersburg, Russia, died April 7, 2005, in Paris, France), 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 (later merged in Givaudan).

Upon his return, he perceived the major changes that had taken place in the perfumery industry of the 1960s: the perfumer and his creativity were muzzled by the all-powerful marketing apparatus. The perfumer as an identity was no longer recognised, in contrast to the traditions of perfumery creation that existed between the 1920s and 1950s. Yuri published several articles on this subject in the Bulletin of the Société Technique des Parfumeurs de France (which subsequently became La Société Française des Parfumeurs), among them is “Perfumer, your name is nobody” and in various other journals. Yuri Gutsatz decided to quit Roure, and registered his own brand, Le Jardin Retrouvé, on 12 December 1975.

The very first Niche Perfumery House was born. He conceived it as an articulation of his concepts on perfumery, creating perfumes of quality at affordable prices, using only the best raw materials available. Among the precursors of niche perfumery was also Jean Laporte, who founded the brand L’Artisan Parfumeur in 1976.