ABOUT THE STUDIO
our story, our inspirations, our stockists
Tanaïs is a New York City based author and perfumer. Their book In Sensorium: Notes For My People, won the 2022 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction. This genre-defying book offers a necessary, alternative feminist perspective of South Asian history, colonization, caste and nation-state formation, through the fascinating lens of scent history and sensuality.
They are the author of the critically-acclaimed novel Bright Lines, Finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and The Brooklyn Public Library Prize.
Their forthcoming feminist futurist novel, Stellar Smoke will be published by Dutton Books in 2026.
Photograph by Abigail Tulenko
Their inspirations are rooted in their Bangladeshi heritage, the wild beauty of their home, New York City, and their spiritual homes, India, Hawaii, Bali, Mexico, Morocco, the Mojave Desert, Jamaica, psychedelia, sensuous resistance, the non-duality of masc-femme, Afro-futurism, Black liberation and feminist thought, Bollywood disco, Rekha, their Bengali foremothers, The Buddha, Sufism, queer ecstasy, trans divinity, fluidity, textiles, beads, narcotic flowers, celestial bodies, Venus and the Moon, meditations by bodies of water, walking in the woods, where places where the ancient and future become one, dance, film, music on vinyl, nature, the cosmos and the Divine, as imagined by syncretic South Asian olfactory and spiritual traditions for eons.
Adorn Your Body, our ethos, is a call for us to feel at home in our body, own our innate beauty, as we are, with beauty and fragrance as a way to adorn ourselves. Holding complex, discordant histories is central to their artistic practice. Adornment is a sensuous act of resistance. Liberation is the ultimate goal.
NYC is our home, a beloved, wild city that constantly inspires us, especially its funk—we make potent extrait de parfum, which means each perfume features a deep concentration of oils (up to 30%) to make sure we stand up to the aromatic urban jungle around us.
Every order sustains us, and our livelihoods as two femme artists, Tanaïs and Beauty & Studio Director, Talysha Moneé.
TANAÏS AND TALYSHA MONEÉ MET ON AN ARTIST'S PHOTO PROJECT, AS MAKEUP ARTIST AND MODEL. WE ARE A QUEER, BLACK AND SOUTH ASIAN DREAM DUO DEVOTED TO ACTS OF RITUAL, BEAUTY & ENDLESS CREATIVITY.
MEET OUR BEAUTY & STUDIO DIRECTOR
Raised in San Antonio, TX, Talysha Moneé moved to NYC in 2010 and graduated from Makeup Designery Soho, starting their first film in the summer of 2011.
Talysha has worked on over fifty independent films since then, showcasing a range of skills in beauty and SFX makeup. Inspired by punk aesthetics, taxidermy, and going into nature to find the beginnings of makeup, like pigments, berries, dirts and clays. Their beauty practice honors the delicate interplay between human anatomy, sensuality, and cycles of life and death.
INTERESTED IN CARRYING TANAÏS PERFUMES OR BEAUTY IN YOUR SHOP? EMAIL US! hello@studiotanais.com
STOCKISTS