The Woman Behind E. Coudray – Interview with Sylvie Dumontier

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by: Miguel Matos

E. Coudray is a very feminine brand, created to celebrate the beauty that lives inside every woman. It also has an old and bumpy history where men are cursed and women are empowered. I am lucky to have met several times Sylvie Dumontier, who is in charge of the E. Coudray line, with perfumes so delicious and sweet, like my favouriteVanille et Coco. Sylvie is now the Export Manager Worldwide for the brand and I can tell you she really embodies the Coudray values: kind, simple, approachable and with a love for true beauty. She is a perfume passionate and it is a pleasure to exchange perfumed words with her.

During the days of the Fragranze exhibitionwe had a chance to sit down and have a cup of coffee, while she told me the stories of the Coudray name. The history of E. Coudray is a family journey that begins in 1822 with Edmond Coudray (that's what the “E” stands for). He was a perfumer and chemist, who became a perfumer of the king. This was a status that allowed a person to sell to the Royal Court in France. At that time, Edmond Coudray was considered an avant-garde guy. For him, all women were beautiful. Every single woman was a beautiful person. Her beauty had just to express itself and be revealed. In 1829 he wrote a book called “L'Art d'Être Belle” (The Art of Being Beautiful). One of the ideas in this book was, for example, to explain to women that in the morning, when they wake up, they should put some iris leaves in water and apply it to their face. He really wanted to help women emphasizing their beauty, even though at that time he was a perfumer of the king and not everyone could afford any of his products.

Sylvie, tell me your stories... The beauty business went prosperous for Coudray, running in the family but not without some twists and turns, right?

Sylvie Dumontier: Yes, Edmond had a daughter and you can imagine that in the 19th century it wasn't possible to pass on his business to a woman after his death. So, his daughter got married and her husband took over the business of E. Coudray. What happened was that he chose the same policy and goal of bringing beauty to every woman. But he was killed during the first world war. And he only had one daughter, so, again, she got married and her husband got the company. Unfortunately, this was like a curse, because he too was killed, this time during the second world war. But thankfully at that time, she could already legally manage the company.

That was the time when we already had Coco Chanel running her business, for example...

Sylvie Dumontier: Exactly. And it stayed in the family until the youngest son of the Coudray family married Madame Brumeau, who was a French baroness. I was very lucky to meet her. She was almost 80 and she was the most wonderful woman I have ever seen. You could feel her elegance, her femininity. She was very pretty. She smoked only one cigarette a day, those long cigarettes that she would put in a long filter. She had one everyday after lunch with a glass of wine. She explained to me that this was her personal pleasure.

Eric Amouyal, when he wanted to buy the brand, had to have lunch with Madame Brumeau every single week for over a year. He had to show her he deserved to have the company and seduce her. It took a year and they would speak about business until she decided to give him the brand 18 years ago. At that time she was very frail, her husband had died, she was alone and wanted to rest, leaving the brand in good hands. I saw her three years after she sold the brand. This is my personal joy: she said she was very happy that I was the one to take care of the line for the international market. I was very glad because she was what femininity is all about, even at 80 years old. This woman could enter a room full of people and you could feel her elegance and strength. But she was also very humble. She was the kind of person who doesn't need to feel superior. It was very interesting to meet her.

Where is Madame Brumeau now? Is she still alive?

Sylvie Dumontier: We haven't heard from her since maybe three years. She usually called Eric to say she was fine. But she had a health problem and she went back to Lyon where she used to have her family. To be honest we don't know if she is still alive because Eric is afraid to call and disturb her. Last time he called, she told him not to call anymore. She was very tired and left the industry forever.

When Eric Amouyal took over E. Coudray, he was already busy bringingL.T. Piver back to life and doing a good job at that...

Sylvie Dumontier: Yes, and that was an important thing for Madame Brumeau, so she was happy with the deal. And in fact there is a link between the two houses because there was one time, I'm not sure when, that someone from the Coudray family married someone from the Piver family. The industry was so small and close, unlike today, that it was natural.

But the company was never for very long in the hands of a man...

Sylvie Dumontier: Each time there was a man involved, the man would pass away and each time it was the women who ended up in charge of E. Coudray. The name has an aura of being in the hands of women, even today. When it was Madame Coudray and her husband died she was alone in charge of it. Today, Eric is my boss and he likes to say “that's why I pushed you into Coudray. I don't want to die!”

It's like a curse!

Sylvie Dumontier: Yes! Also, even today 95% of the the distributors for E. Coudrayare women, beautiful women. The women in charge of E. Coudray are feminine, sweet, passionate.

Now, speaking of the brand portfolio, I really love Ambre et Vanille andVanille et Coco. Did you inherit the formulas from the house?

Sylvie Dumontier: Everything, totally! Even the old bottles and the museum... We have a lot of things. When Eric bought the company there were 14 scents but they were sold mainly in beauty salons and with a different network. We decided to keep the parfumeur status. It's nice to have the continuity of what Edmond Coudray wanted to share with others.

The E. Coudray line of today is not a very exuberant one. It has that feminine, maybe undestated elegance. The fragrances are beautiful, sweet and kind.

Sylvie Dumontier: Every perfume is beautiful, but we wanted women to express their beauty and the best way to do that is not to put a perfume on because of the name or the brand. It needs to match your identity. We thought about what were the average preferences of women. We needed a rose, a gourmand, a fresh one...

You have now 6 fragrances and matching body oils...

Sylvie Dumontier: E. Coudray is a perfumed body line. So you always have the eau de toilette, the perfumed body oil, the perfumed cream and the perfumed shower gel. We wanted to have perfumes that bring you comments, like a friend of mine who arrived in a restaurant and told me “I know you were here because I smelled your perfume”. This is very exciting! You express the perfume because it matches who you are and it is different on every woman. It's chemical.

Sometimes I wear a specific fragrance to communicate something about myself. To give some message. Like when I choose to wear Poison...

Sylvie Dumontier: Yes, but that is something you choose with a purpose. Perfume can also be an identity and has connection with who you are. And that is because perfume is social. The moment you understand this, you can wear it to send a message, to express yourself or even when you need to be strong.

It's another form of communication. I feel my personality has many different facets, so why should I stick to just one perfume?

Sylvie Dumontier: But each facet has one thing in common, which is your heart. Sometimes you can love a fragrance when you smell it on anyone else, but if you test it on your skin, sometimes you end up thinking: “Do I want to smell like this the whole day?”. When you put something on your body, you connect with it.

Everybody knows that perfume goes away, so you may think you are not very involved in it. But the experiment I do with Coudray is to introduce to the clients to the perfumed body cream. And this way you have to connect more deeply. When you have the cream penetrating your skin, you have to think “Who am I? Am I this?” and you are obliged to go deep inside. That's what I like in Coudray.

It's not just a perfume line that comes from fashion. It's a perfume body line that pushes you to find who you are and then connect to the perfume, not to the name. I speak from my own experience because I'm a woman and I wear Coudray.