Lightyears Collection
Dana

The Original Company

Dana was established in 1932 in Barcelona, Spain, by Javier Serra, a former director of the Spanish fragrance house, Myrurgia. Initial capitalization was 200,000 pesetes. Later Dana moved to 9, rue de la Paix, Paris.

The company was named for Dana, a Greek nymph and mother of Perseus, slayer of Medusa. (Zeus was the father.) The name "Dana" has long been associated with beauty.

The Dana trademark was styled from artwork by Spanish artist, Mariano Andreu (born Barcelona, Spain, 1888, died Biarritz, France, 1976.)

In 1995, Dana ("Les Parfums de Dana") was purchased by Renaissance Cosmetics, Inc.

The New Dana

Renaissance Cosmetics, newly launched in 1994, was pursuing a two-fold strategy which became its undoing. The announced plan was to buy and revitalize underperforming brands. The second part of the plan was to achieve $1 billion in gross sales by 1999. Renaissance succeeded in buying a number of brands, the first of which was Cosmar Corp., a nail care company. This was followed by the acquisition of twelve brands from the ailing Houbigant company. Then, all within their first six months in business, Dana.

By 1996, sales volume had doubled for Dana's Tabu but there was a failure to achieve profit. Problems were developing in the markets that Renaissance wished to reach. Unlike upscale stores where sales personnel demonstrated and pushed perfume on customers, Renaissance was selling to mass merchants who displayed their perfume in locked, unattended, glass showcases requiring a good deal of determination on the part of buyers in order to make a purchase.

In its quest for market share and gross sales, Renaissance found itself getting deeper in debt with every sale it made. The result was a 1999 bankruptcy and the acquisition of Renaissance Cosmetics by Fragrance Express, Inc. and the investment house of Dimeling, Schreiber & Park. The new owners paid just $29 million for the company which had hoped to achieve $1 billion in sales. Dana now became the "New Dana Perfume Corporation." Fragrance Express, Inc. was purchased by National Boston Medical Inc.

In 2004, New Dana announced that it was closing it's 40 year old Mountain Top facility in Wright Township, Pennsylvania. At this time, two Danas were using the facility: New Dana Perfume, Inc., which manufactures, fills, and stores Dana products, and Dana Classic Fragrances, Inc., which owns the trademarks to the Dana fragrances and markets and sells the Dana perfume line.

Perfumes By Dana Prior to Renaissance Acquisition

If you have any information on Dana, please share it with us using the message sender below.

• Robert Stanistreet, 02/29/2024. I have used your product Monsieur Musk for forty years. It’s the aftershave I mostly used with great success in the comfort I got when I applied it and the fragrance it provided. When I wore this product people always asked what I was wearing. The aroma was unbelievably one of a kind. The ladies loved it the men where not long getting it. Now I can’t get it. Why are you not restocking this unbelievable product. Why would you replace it with a toilet water splash. I’ve not brought it and the reviews tell me no too. Please put it back on the market.
  

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