Maison Desti

Established by Madame Mary "Desti" Dempsey (1871-1931.)

Desti was born on October 10, 1871 in Quebec, Canada; became owner of Maison Desti Beauty Products cosmetics firm. She also owned a New York City studio at 603 Fifth Avenue, which sold art objects, perfumes, and clothing such as batik scarves.

She was the mother of Preston Sturges and closest friend and confidante of Isadora Duncan for over 20 years. Her friendship with Duncan prompted her to write "The untold story: the life of Isadora Duncan, 1921-1927" in (1929).


Having a great imagination, Desti enjoyed making believe that she was descended from Italian nobility on the grounds that Dempsey had to be a mispronunciation of the princely “d’Este”–Mary Dempsey opened a cosmetics business in Europe called Maison d’Este in 1911. She believed herself to be a descendent of the Este family, via Mary Beatrice d'Este of Modena, the devout wife of James II of England.  After threats of litigation from the actual grand family of d’Estes, she modified the firm’s name to Desti and used it as her middle name.

Around 1911, she married a Turk, Vely Bey. During a visit to Vely’s parent, Mary got a small rash on her face. Vely’s father, Elias Pasha, physician to the sultan, looked at it and made up a purple lotion with a white deposit in it. He told her the lotion was used not only by the ladies of the court of Abdul-Hamid, but by most of the women in the principal seraglios of Turkey. Amazingly, the rash disappeared almost at once, and suddenly Mary got the idea to put it on the market with the name of Le Secret du Harem. She asked her father in law if he would tell her how to make it. At first he said he wasn’t supposed to because it was a very valuable secret formula that not only cleared up the complexion but supposedly removed wrinkles also. But since she was the wife of his son, he obliged.

Upon the making of the cream, she decided to open a cosmetic house, which she named Maison D’Este, but she quickly renamed the salon Maison Desti, upon the threat of the law which threatened to take action if she used the venerable name of the D’Este family.

Mary found a mezzanine floor at 4, rue de la Paix between the Place Vendome and the Opera. She had it decorated by Isadora Duncan's designer friend Paul Poiret, who had just branched off from dressmaking into interior decorating using the name Atelier Martine, and Mary proclaimed the results "fantastic". . Before the business opened, Mary and Vely realized that they were going to need something more to sell than just the skin lotion. One day, a very famous manicurist Mrs. Kantor was invited to the business, a product line for nails called "Kantorshine" was sold by Desti in honor of Mrs. Kantor. Then a hair dresser was added, as well as a couple of Chinese chiropodists, and finally a very fine old chemist. With all the staff in place, the Beauty Institute was ready to serve the public.

Mary was notably a stickler for details and had a charming way of making people want to do her favors and proved to be a gifted creator and packager of cosmetics. Soon, Maison Desti was offering not only the secret Ottoman ointment but, its own line of creams, rouges and face powders. Mary added unique tints to her face powders, the very modern "sun burn" (since sunbathing was a "thing" in the 1920s), a color correcting lavender tint and ochre (for Hispanic ladies) to the standard colors of the times.

With all this activity going on, Mary figured she better have some perfumes that she could sell under the house’s name. She was able to get some assistance from the famous Parisian perfume company LT Piver, who let her have a remarkable odor she stumbled on at their premises, not wishing themselves to launch any new perfumes, and then also sold her some of their oldest alcohol so she could recreate the perfume. She immediately named this new perfume after her distinguished ancestor, "Beatrice D’Esti". Several other perfumes: Ambre, Peau d'Amour, Ye Old Lace Handkerchief, Lilas, Jasmin, Whither Thou Goest, Isadora Duncan, Incense Royale, Quierime, Laughing Waters, Moi-Meme, Hours of the Day, Aurore, and Turquoise were added by 1915.

The perfumes of Desti:

• 1914 Beatrice D'Esti
• 1914 Ambre
• 1914 Peau d'Amour
• 1914 Ye Old Lace Handkerchief
• 1914 Whither Thou Goest
• 1914 Turquoise
• 1914 Quierime
• 1914 Moi-Meme
• 1914 Aurore
• 1914 Isadora Duncan
• 1914 Jasmin
• 1914 Lilas
• 1914 Saphir
• 1914 Devinez
• 1914 Laughing Waters
• 1914 L'Invitation a La Dans
• 1915 Hours of the Day
• 1915 Incense Royale

“I distill a perfume I call “Hours of the Day,” said Mary Desti. "This essence may be used at any hour of the day, but as it is made from all the flowers that bloom in the day, it is best to use it in the evening. First, I take the flowers that bloom in the early morning, particularly the violet. These morning flowers owe much of their fragrance to the dew and the scent of rich earth. Next, I put in the spring flowers - the white and yellow blossoms, hyacinths and jonquils. I also use roses of all sorts, from the sweet briar to the eastern roses. Then I put in a few flowers the names of which I keep secret, and bind all with jasmine. It is a delicious perfume, this blending of fragrance together.”

She wet on to explain “the perfume of which I sell the most was suggested to me by a clairvoyant. I call it “Aurore”. She told me that if I blended lilac, jasmine, and roses in certain proportions I would have a perfume that would make any person irresistible. I did so, adding a few drops of a secret essence of my own which I thought would blend with the other flowers. The effect of these few drops was wonderful. They changed the perfume so that it resembled floating pink clouds. The first person to use this perfume was a comic opera star of one of the theatres in Paris. When she came into my shop she was dispirited, depressed, and she asked for an essence that would dispel her melancholia. So I handed a bottle of my newly distilled ‘Aurore’ to her. “It will make everyone love you,” I told her.”

 “Whither Thou Goest: is another of my successful perfumes. This essence holds all the appeal of Ruth in the Bible. It is brewed from the flowers and grasses of the Eastern night; of the dew-wet fragrance of the wild flower and honey and corn. It exudes the devotion of a woman, her faith and her love. There is another perfume I call Turquoise. It is blended of the spirit of all blue things. The sky, the sea, blue flowers and grass; the breath of the wind, violets and the soul of the turquoise. The perfume expresses what the color means to me.

Peau d’Amour, the envelopment of love, is what its name implies. Ye Old Lace Handkerchief is the odor that goes with old lace. It is made of lavender principally. Then there is Laughing Waters, a toilet water. Every created thing has a perfume that goes with it. Art in perfumery is in fitting the scent to affinity. The furs, for instance - and when I say furs, I conjure up a vision of a splendid woman, something of the tigress, but subtle, in sables. The perfume for sables is Quierime, Spanish for “love me”. This perfume is made of amber and Russian leather with a whiff of lilac," claimed Madame Desti.

"Love is but a perfume. Mental conditions and emotions all bear an odor, and we, like animals, recognize our mates through sense of smell; only human's is more spiritual," said Madame Desti.

She then traveled to Venice where she had some extraordinary iridescent glass bottles blown with a miniature of the famous painting of the lovely Beatrice burned into the glass which served as the label. She then formed an alliance with a new box firm in Paris called Tolmer, whose designs were ahead of their time and comparable to Draeger. Maison Tolmer produced some of the most stylish luxe packaging in France for perfumes, cosmetics and chocolates including elegant boxes covered with exquisitely printed graphics, advertising posters and publicity brochures. Tolmer manufactured products for other perfume companies such as Suzanne Thierry, LT Piver, Sauze and Bourjois.

At Baccarat and Lalique, some lovely crystal bottles were made for lotions based on the secret Harem formula, and some alabaster jars were turned out for creams and unguents from the same source.
Mary then traveled to New York in 1912, bringing sample cases of her products and headed for the B. Altman department store. Elegantly garbed in a luxurious mink coat and lustrous pearls, Mary asked to see the head of the beauty department who was then quite impressed by all of the products, managed to purchase ten thousand dollars worth of Desti products.

A little while after Mary returned to Paris, a gentleman called upon her at the Maison Desti and said, "I think that what you have done, Madame Desti, in so short a time is one of the most remarkable adventures in our business that I have ever seen. Now it so happens I do not manufacture any cosmetics, although I am the most successful perfumer in the world. I propose that you give up your several little perfumes, although they are very nice, and that you allow me to manufacture your cosmetics for you and distribute them throughout the world. In exchange, I will give you twenty-five percent of the profits. The Desti cosmetics should make a remarkable team with my perfumes, which are called Coty.”

Mary, Preston Sturges would ruefully (and regrettably) report later, turned Mr. Coty down, believing that he was trying to take advantage of her.

Isadora, ever the Bohemian, was chagrined and told Mary that she was sullying herself with business, and proposed that they throw all of the perfume bottles out the window and onto the street. "That would be a great ending and show your disdain for business" she said. Mary did not warm to that suggestion but instead decided to tune down the commercial aspect of her business. She would describe the Maison Desti as an "amusing salon" where famous people like the King of Spain and the Crown Prince Rupert of Bavaria might show up to hang out.

A second branch of Maison Desti was opened up, this time in Deauville. In 1914, Mary formed a deal with the owner of Ciro's, a fashionable Parisian restaurant. The owner had rented a house for the season in the new resort town of Deauville in Normandy (the millionaire's playground). The deal was that Maison Desti would occupy the ground floor of Ciro's building, and the restaurant would continue operations on the first floor. Preston, fifteen and still at school in Switzerland, was manager of the cosmetics shop, got room and board as part of the deal. For the next few months, he would be able to sleep above the restaurant in a cozy flat and take his all meals at the restaurant. At the start of the first World War, Mary sent him on home to America, for fear that he might enlist in the military.

He came to the United States, armed with a many perfume bottles and cosmetics as he could carry and went directly to 347 Fifth Avenue and along with Daisy Andrews, established the American branch of Maison Desti. Department stores such as B. Altman, Bonwit Teller, Jordan Marsh, Best & Co, Mandel Brothers,  and Marshall Field's carried the Desti line.

Also in 1914, reports from Daisy Andrews at the New York shop did not bode well and Mary traveled to New York to see for herself. After a heated argument with Mary, Andrews walked out and a lawyer advised Mary to declare bankruptcy. Taking his advice, and making a clean sweep of things, the posh Fifth Avenue shop was closed for good. Apparently, Mary regretted this decision for the rest of her life.


The American Perfumer and Essential Oil Review, Volume 9, 1915:

"Mary Vely Bey, sometimes known as Mary Sturges, doing business as Desti, dealer in perfumery at 347 Fifth Avenue, filed a petition in bankruptcy on December 23 with liabilities $10,796 and assets $1,548, consisting of stock $111, and accounts $548. She also has some furnishings in Paris subject to debts, in which the equity is nominal, and she also has a claim against Daisy Andrews. Among the creditors are the Metropolitan Opera Company, $210 for advertising, Walcott Hotel, $150, and A. Houzot, of Paris $2,000 rent. She owes $6,800 to creditors in Paris. She has been in business here for one year. Judge Hough appointed MJ Eichbauer receiver bond $500."

Not to be deterred, the remnants of the Fifth Avenue store was moved to a smaller but pretty location at 23 East Ninth Street, across the street from the the Cafe Lafayette, an area known for its French flavor. Together, they revived the Desti cosmetic line, the Aurore Rouge, and their face powders with the unusual tints, the Secret of the Harem cream (which was called simply Youth Cream because of Turkey's alliances during the war).

The orders were still coming in but very slowly. Most of the New York shop's customers were the big department stores, their stock of Desti products were beginning to be depleted, and they were asking for replenishment. Importation was still out of the question, so Mary and Preston had to make due with American supplies, boxes and bottles, an assortment of essential oils, fixatives and other raw materials, eau de cologne spirits (alcohol) for perfume, which they felt were not up to French standards. They bought bottles from the Whitall-Tatum and Company, unfortunately a far cry from those Mary got in Venice or from Baccarat and Lalique. For the packaging they bought attractive boxes from a box maker named Mr. Rothchild. The alcohol was not aged and the raw materials were "not bad but they were not very good". They hired an elderly part time chemist to work on the perfumes and cosmetics.

Preston explained how harried the shop was at that time, even some of his good friends would help out, "Everyone would help fill the powder or rouge boxes through a round hole in the bottom...packing the powder or Aurora Rouge in tightly with a soup spoon, after which a piece of green calendered paper would be glued over the bottom to hide the hole, then the shade would be marked on with a rubber stamp. After this I would cover each box with a new product which had been invented in Belgium. It was called cellophane and I always thought it would have a big future, but I hadn't the sort of mind which would make me try to share in this future."

Some of Preston's better known customers were Evelyn Nesbitt, Ganna Walska (who had her own perfume business), Peggy Guggenheim, Mae Marsh, Lillian Russell and the daughter of cosmetics queen, Madame CJ Walker.

In 1914, the rue de la Paix store closed. A mob of patriotic Parisians learned of Mary’s marriage to Vely Bey and stormed her shop when Turkey allied with Germany. Because of the war, it was nearly impossible to get the Desti products shipped from France and imported into the USA, the business began to flounder.

In 1916, Mary opened a branch of Maison Desti in London at 6,7 and 8 Old Bond Street, upstairs over Teofani the tobacconist. One day, Vely Bey showed up with an idea for paperless cigarettes held together with a leaf of tobacco and rose petal tips, which seemed a good idea and Mary, a nonsmoker, who didn't like the taste of tobacco, thought that cigarettes perfumed with amber might mask the unpleasant taste, devised a scented tobacco called Desti’s Ambre Cigarettes. She found the results delicious and the cigarettes were very popular with the ladies. The cigarettes were dedicated to the French revue artist Alice Delysia.

Advertising & Selling, Volume 25, 1915:

"Attractiveness of French Designs. More modern French design beginning with the Art Nouveau movement produced many remarkable packages some pleasing and graceful some bizarre and weird. The packages for Desti perfumes and powders are among the most interesting and attractive but when two ounces of perfume sell for six dollars the package might well be a work of art." 

A new perfume was introduced, "Whither thou Goest" and the Secret of the Harem ointment, renamed Youth Lotion was still being sold. Though she added many new items to the Maison Desti line, the business was struggling. She summoned Preston to London to help her pick up the pace.

It was 1916, and Preston turned 18 soon after and decided he no longer wanted anything to do with Maison Desti. He served as a cadet in the Aviation Section of the US Signal Corps. The war ended before his training was completed, and he was disappointed and felt "cheated and unmanly"because he never saw any combat. He did graduate his Air Service training with honors and won the wings and the title of officer. With no other options in his immediate future, he set off for New York and returned to Maison Desti.

While Preston was in the Air Service, Mary moved the store on Ninth Avenue to 4 West Fifty Seventh Street and turned into a beauty salon bringing in manicurists and makeup artists to serve the upscale clientele. The "perfumed warm atmosphere" did not suit Preston, so instead of conducting business inside the shop, he decided to sell his products outside of the shop, going from hairdresser to beauty salon, promoting his goods. It was in 1920 that he invented his most successful commercial product, a lipstick which he called Preston's Red Red Rouge, a kissproof indelible lip color.

With Preston back in New York and handling the business quite well, Mary returned to Paris. In 1920, Preston decided he no longer wanted to be in the salon and perfume business and concentrated his efforts on being a small cosmetic manufacturing and packaging business, which struck him as effeminate, and he fired the makeup artists and manicurists. Incidentally, the head Desti manicurist, happened to be Peggy Sage. Peggy Sage went on to form her own successful company selling cosmetics and making millions of dollars with nail polish and lipsticks.

Preston moved the small business to the less glamorous Williamsburg section of Brooklyn to save money. It was here that he continued to fill orders and recruit new customers. In 1923, he married Estelle Godfrey and with her inheritance, he bought a grinding and sifting machine, hired a chemist and was determined to make Maison Desti a first rate cosmetics factory. The couple found larger working quarters and lived in the flat above the new shop. Optimistic and working harder than ever, the business started growing. One day in 1924,  two perfume distributors from the Lionel Trading Company turned up in Brooklyn, they offered to buy the enormous amount of $1,000 worth of Desti products a month in exchange for exclusive distribution rights.

"I became dizzy with joy, and felt at last the business that I had been in since my boyhood and that my mother had given me on her departure from America in 1915 was finally going to become a success and bear rich fruit. Within sixty days Mother returned from Europe and asked for her business back," said Preston. Out of jealousy, Mary wanted the business back in her name and rights only. He dismantled his shop while his mother looked about for a prettier shop for Maison Desti, her Maison Desti.

Unfortunately the deal with the Lionel Trading Company came to nothing, his marriage dissolved and he moved to Chicago near his father. He came back to New York and visited his mother at her 603 Fifth Avenue apartment and pretty shop where she sold batik scarves and perfumes and cosmetics. She was tired of New York and wanted to hand over Maison Desti back to Preston if he could come up with money for her to go on a trip to Paris.

Mary Desti passed away from leukemia in 1931 at her residence, 603 Fifth Avenue, of leukemia after being seriously ill for two months. By the time of Mary's death, Maison Desti came to a close.

Much info on Mary Desti was found here: https://underthehollywoodsign.wordpress.com/tag/mary-astor/