Style Edit: Henry Jacques’ bespoke Sur-Mesure service creates an entirely new perfume just for you using the storied French brand’s library of more than 1,000 scents

May 29 , 2023

Henry Jacques’ bespoke Sur-Mesure service helps create an entirely new perfume just for you using the brand’s library of more than 1,000 scents. Photos: Henry Jacques

Most of us think of perfume as something that comes ready-made, a standard recipe for mass use. We happily pick up a bottle and spray on the beautifully scented liquid inside, but spare little thought as to where that scent came from and what it’s made of – and, crucially, we get the exact same scent that everyone else does.

The world of bespoke perfumery is quite different. Like haute couture, its counterpart from the world of fashion, it provides the most exacting of customers with the most personalised and precious of olfactory creations, a perfume tailored specifically to them, to suit them physically and emotionally.

Henry Jacques’ perfumes all come in exquisite crystal flacons.

For most of its existence, it was precisely this kind of rarefied perfumery to which the coveted house of Henry Jacques was exclusively dedicated. Founded in 1975 in Grasse, the southern French town that has long been the home of that nation’s storied perfume industry, the maison was founded by globetrotter Henry Jacques Cremona, who took inspiration from his travels to craft his creations.

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Although the house also makes off-the-shelf scents these days, it’s the careful process of private consultation, then the selecting and blending of bespoke mixes – which it refers to as its Sur-Mesure perfumes – that remains its heart and soul.

To embark on the creation of your very own Henry Jacques Sur-Mesure is to connect yourself to the history and art of perfumery. You won’t find trend-chasing novelty for its own sake here; instead, each Sur-Mesure perfume is the result of a lengthy, in-depth consultation with clients, digging into their personality and finding the ingredients that express them. Henry Jacques commits to this completely, listening carefully to its customers, learning their preferences, explaining possible choices and proceeding carefully while selecting and refining those choices, as customer and perfumier together move towards the final blend.

Crafting a Henry Jacques Sur-Mesure scent.

As a result of this meticulous process, every single Sur-Mesure scent is a one-of-a-kind creation. There’s endless room for personalisation, driven by Henry Jacques’ library of more than a thousand ingredients, all from entirely natural sources. The maison collects these ingredients from every corner of the world, putting the emphasis on the very finest in quality.

These precious building blocks for Sur-Mesure scents are housed in Henry Jacques’ legendary perfume organ, a spectacular collection arrayed in ranks, ready to be selected by the maison’s fragrance masters to add its own special note to a given blend. Each personalised Sur-Mesure creation may contain up to 250 different ingredients, with as many of them combined as are needed to capture the essence of a particular customer.

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Your essence captured, courtesy of Henry Jacques’ Sur-Mesure service.

Sur-Mesure is the art of perfumery taken to another level. If you’re looking for something that’s unique, personal and of unmatched quality, explore the ultimate in bespoke indulgence: your very own perfume, crafted for you by the masters, Henry Jacques.

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Style Edit

Globetrotter Henry Jacques Cremona founded his eponymous brand in 1975 in Grasse, the southern French town that is home to the nation’s perfume industry
Each Sur-Mesure perfume may contain up to 250 different ingredients, each one expressing an aspect of the person who commissioned it for the ultimate bespoke experience