2024-04-17

Re-imagining 'Story of O'

Photography by Shelbie Dimond

Shelbie Dimond (born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1992) is a photographer, print-maker, model and actress based in Paris, France. Having left the Jehovah's Witness community in which she was raised, and her subsequent ex-communication, her work focuses on religious taboos, mental illness, bodily reclamation and female sexuality.

For JOUISSANCE, Dimond reinterprets the inspiration behind one of our debut fragrances, Pauline Réage's Story of O.

"When she was properly made up and prepared - her eyelids pencilled lightly; her lips bright red; the tip and halo of her breasts highlighted with pink; and perfume applied to the furrow between her thighs, the furrow beneath her breasts, and to the hollows of her hands – she was led into a room where a three-sided mirror enabled her to examine herself closely."

– Story of O

"Pleasure, we've got to move beyond that stage. We must make the tears flow."

“The chains and the silence which ought to have sealed her isolated self within twenty impenetrable walls, to have asphyxiated her, strangled her, hadn’t; to the contrary, they’d been her deliverance, liberating her from herself.”

"O felt that her mouth was beautiful, since her lover condescended to thrust himself into it."

†Photography by Shelbie Dimond

Featured Scent

La Bague D'O

£180.00

Jouissance Diary

"It was while writing a Diary that I discovered how to capture living moments," Anaïs Nin wrote. "In the Diary I only wrote of what interested me genuinely, what I felt most strongly at the moment, and I found this fervour, this enthusiasm produced a vividness which often withered in the formal work. Improvisation, free association, obedience to mood, impulse, brought forth countless images, portraits, descriptions, impressionistic sketches, symphonic experiments, from which I could dip at any time for material."

In tribute to Anaïs Nin, one of our foremost inspirations for Jouissance, our DIARY captures our most treasured moments, our obsessions and preoccupations, our research and the lessons we learn, and the work of our cherished friends and collaborators.