Jean Kerléo (born 24 February 1932) is a French
perfumer
A perfumer is an expert on creating perfume compositions, sometimes referred to affectionately as a ''nose'' (French: ''nez'') due to their fine sense of smell and skill in producing olfactory compositions. The perfumer is effectively an artist w ...
who worked in-house of
Jean Patou
Jean Patou (; 27 September 1887 – 8 March 1936) was a French fashion designer, and founder of the Jean Patou brand.
Early life
Patou was born in Paris, France in 1887. Patou's family's business was tanning and furs. Patou worked with his ...
and is also the founder of the
Osmothèque
The Osmothèque (from Greek ''osmē'' "scent" patterned on French ''bibliothèque'' "library") is the world's largest scent archive, a leading international research institution tracing the history of perfumery, based in Versailles with conferenc ...
, a scent archive in
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...
. Kerleo was born on 24 February 1932 in
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period o ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
.
At age 22, he began making perfumes for a
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
company, Helena Rubenstein.
He received the Prix des Parfumeurs de France in 1965, served as the president for the Society of French Perfumers from 1976 to 1979, and was awarded the Prix François COTY in 2001
From 1967 until 1998, Kerléo was the in-house perfumer for the house of Jean Patou, the second in line after
Henri Alméras
Henri Alméras (1892 – 1965) was a French perfumer, author, and painter.
Early life and career
Alméras was born in a garrison in Brittany, the son of an officer. In school, he excelled in chemistry. He performed his military service in 1913 an ...
, where he composed the influential perfumes ''1000'' and ''Sublime''. In 1999, he passed his position of head perfumer of Jean Patou to
Jean-Michel Duriez
Jean-Michel is a French masculine given name. It may refer to :
* Jean-Michel Arnold, General Secretary of the Cinémathèque Française
* Jean-Michel Atlan (1913–1960), French artist
* Jean-Michel Aulas (born 1949), French businessman
* Jean-Mic ...
and became the director of the Osmothèque, which he co-founded.
In this position, he supervised, researched, and extended the collection of this fragrance archive to encompass and reconstruct more ancient and lost perfumes.
Guerlain
Guerlain () is a French perfume, cosmetics and skincare house, which is among the oldest in the world. Many traditional Guerlain fragrances are characterized by a common olfactory accord known as the "Guerlinade" (fr). The house was founded in P ...
.
Creations for Jean Patou
*''Lacoste Eau de Sport'' (1967, for men; discontinued)
*''1000'' (1972)
*''Eau de Patou'' (1976)
*''Patou pour Homme'' (1980, for men; discontinued)
*''Ma Liberté'' (1987, discontinued)
*''Sublime'' (1992)
*''Patou pour Homme Privé'' (1994, for men; discontinued)
*''Voyageur'' (1995)
In 1984, Jean Kerléo was responsible for the recreation of 12 iconic Patou fragrances of the early decades: ''Amour-Amour'', ''Que sais-je'', ''Adieu Sagesse'', ''Chaldée'', ''Moment Suprême'', ''Cocktail'', ''Divine Folie'', ''Normandie'', ''Vacances'', ''Colony'', ''L'Heure Attendue'', ''Câline''. Very much in the spirit of his later work at the Osmothèque, he restricted himself to those fragrances he could confidently reassemble based on existing formulas and available ingredients, avoiding guesswork where such reference material was not available. For this reason, many classic Patou fragrances were not recreated.
References
French perfumers
Living people
1932 births
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