Canoé

This is precisely the case with Canoé from the perfume house Dana which, although created in 1936, remains a timeless classic among the great fragrances of this century. Why? A touch of audacity, a great nose as conductor, and a formidable fougère taste of vacation for a perfume that drifts through time like water flowing by...

Canoé, a sporty creation signed Jean Carles for Dana

The perfume Canoé is the result of a fruitful meeting between Jean Carles and the founder of the house of Dana, Javier Serra. The perfume house Dana was created in 1921 under the aegis of the Spanish perfumer, who until then had headed Myrugia, a great perfume house of Barcelona.
Despite releasing beautiful sensual fragrances in Spain, Dana struggled to establish itself on the French market. Friends with Jean Carles, an up-and-coming perfumer, Javier Serra decided to ask him to collaborate in creating perfumes for Dana in Paris. The birth of the beautiful Canoé and the irresistible Emir would seal this most interesting partnership for good.

Nevertheless, the brilliant creator Jean Carles wished to take his own path after the release of these two creations. A rather wise decision, as he would go on to create Miss Dior and Ma Griffe for Carven. Yet despite the incredible success of those two perfumes, Canoé remains a great masterpiece that lives on in memory as one of the olfactory preludes to the fabulous Miss Dior, which would be released ten years after Canoé.

Canoé, an oriental fougère with the taste of vacations and seaside strolls...

A true echo of the very first paid holidays, Canoé is a perfume of freedom given to working women who, until then, had no chance to know the taste of sea spray. Moreover, the bottle of Canoé, round like the pretty curves of a woman in a swimsuit, illustrates the perfume's name through the depiction of maritime flags whose codes signify the perfume's initials.

Canoé is above all a perfume of carefree ease and vacation. The citrus and aromatic opening of this fougère fragrance carries one straight into invigorating, refreshing seas of lemon, lavender, and clary sage, evoking a certain masculinity. Then this perfume does not hesitate to play with floral scents to exhale its very feminine power through notes of rose, jasmine, mimosa, and ylang-ylang. But the floral heart does not stop there, leading into cedarwood to better capture one with its radiant freshness. Heliotrope and oakmoss form a lasting green, herbaceous sillage, punctuated by a gourmand, sensual vanilla.

Canoé is often compared to Miss Dior, as their shared nose seems to have presented certain floral facets of rose and jasmine in the gentle vessel Canoé, only to make them literally explode, ten years later, in the great perfume by Dior. Whatever the presumed links between these two fragrances, one thing is certain: Canoé offers women of the 1930s an inimitable taste of adventure, in search of an original perfume and a touch of maritime dreams.