I’ve never met perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena, but from what I’ve seen, heard and read (interviews, his own books) I like him. I enjoy (and own) many of his perfumes and, like Georgia O’Keeffe, Ellena shows that wrinkles do not tarnish sex appeal or good looks. Best of all, Ellena comes across as unpretentious, sensible, fun.
Enter stage left: Mr. Serious (aka Frédéric Malle).
In Frédéric Malle’s video of the making of Rose & Cuir,* Malle talks of Ellena’s “periods” as a perfumer…
Rose & Cuir’s origin story begins in a verdant garden planted more than 70 years ago by Edmond Roudnitska, the perfumer behind such midcentury masterpieces as Diorella and Diorissimo, outside his Côte d’Azur studio. It was there that Roudnitska first smelled the vivid crimson Etoile de Hollande rose that inspired him to create Rose de Rochas for couturier Marcel Rochas in 1949, and there that, in 2018, Roudnitska’s son Michel happened to wave that long-discontinued eau under the discerning nostrils of [Frédéric] Malle and [Jean-Claude] Ellena.
— Read more at Jean-Claude Ellena Is the Picasso of Perfume at Town & Country.
Frédéric Malle and perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena talk about Rose & Cuir.
A spot for Le Couvent des Minimes Hattaï, Heliaca, Lysandra, Nubica and Saïga. Then below the jump, perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena talks about the brand and the collection.
Le Couvent des Minimes has introduced Les Eaux de Parfum Singulières, a new collection of fragrances under the creative direction of perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena. The five “portraits of nature”— Hattaï, Heliaca, Lysandra, Nubica and Saïga — were inspired by the voyages of botanist Louis Feuillée…