Curations: How family-run, French bespoke parfumerie Henry Jacques created an enduring luxury legacy
- Founder Henry Cremona built an exclusive fragrance atelier in Grasse, the capital of France’s perfume industry, after finding inspiration in his travels
- Anne-Lise Cremona, the founder’s daughter and second-generation CEO, works to expand the brand beyond its elite clientele to be available to shoppers worldwide
In 1975, Henry Jacques Cremona founded a French luxury parfumerie after finding inspiration in his travels. His eponymous brand has since been on its own journey spanning nearly a half-century, emerging as a master of bespoke fragrances while also establishing a family legacy.
The origins of Parfums Henry Jacques go back to when Cremona worked at a multinational company, which sent him on overseas trips three days a week. During these travels, he started to observe human nature across various cultures.
He came to understand and admire how different people found happiness, particularly women. “There is beauty in all women ... how they look, how they think and express themselves,” Cremona says. “I wanted to do something that is for women, something beautiful that allows them to express their personality.”
So Cremona combined his big-business marketing expertise with an interest in Middle Eastern perfumery developed amid his travels, and founded his fragrance atelier in Grasse, southern France – a town long known as the capital of the country’s perfume industry.
When he first arrived in Grasse in the 1970s, Cremona met a craftsman who he calls “one of the last great perfume noses in France”. At that time, only 20 to 25 people worldwide were regarded as true perfume noses who could use their knowledge of natural, raw materials to make a perfectly composed fragrance.
Cremona learned this olfactory art from one of those greats, and today remains a keeper of that expertise, which he turned into a successful business. Henry Jacques made its name by crafting refined fragrances according to the wishes of its elite clientele.
The one-off, bespoke perfumes are created to be an extension of its wearer, invoking personal memories and emotions. Clients can even have their tailor-made scent presented in a specially designed, hand-blown crystal bottle, choosing details such as colour and shape.
The parfumerie’s work is done on an intimate scale, with each artisanal fragrance carefully composed in the brand’s Grasse laboratory. His team uses only the purest natural essences and essential oils sourced from across the globe, which are kept in flasks for as long as 20 years, ensuring a client’s favourite scent can be re-created. “You have to understand the way essential oils like jasmine change year to year,” Cremona says. “Like wine, each season is a little different.”
Henry Jacques is also a close-knit family affair. The founder’s wife, Yvette Cremona, collaborates on each creation in the lab, adding the final olfactory note. Their daughter, Anne-Lise Cremona, grew up with the business. Today, she is its CEO, with a mission to carry on the perfume brand’s legacy while sharing it with more of the world.
Anne-Lise Cremona started out assisting in the family parfumerie before deciding to pursue an independent career in the field. She worked at various perfume companies, picking up knowledge of how the industry works on a larger, mass-produced scale, while also developing a strength for business strategy.
More than 20 years later, she came back to Henry Jacques with a vision that combined her large-scale industry experience with her bespoke fragrance know-how. “I knew exactly where I wanted to go,” Cremona says. “It was clear to me, but no one dared to go there.”
Under her leadership, the brand has ventured into retail in recent years with a handful of stand-alone boutiques around the world, including in Asia, opening up Henry Jacques to the shopping public. The groundwork for that effort was laid in 2010 with the launch of the parfumerie’s first collection for consumers.
Under Anne-Lise Cremona’s creative supervision, the perfume collections have continued to grow and evolve. Today, they include Les Classiques de HJ, which comprises 50 fragrances that best represent the craftsmanship of Henry Jacques. Each is presented in a sleek, minimalist crystal bottle designed by Christophe Tollemer, the brand’s artistic director. There is also Les Toupies, which features pairs of complementary, his-and-hers fragrances in handcrafted crystal bottles that resemble spinning tops.
Amid these changes, however, the luxury perfume atelier continues to provide personalised services for clients and remains dedicated to its founding values. “Henry Jacques embodies an ideal of creativity, quality and authenticity,” Anne-Lise Cremona says. “My main concern ... is longevity while keeping the art of perfumery.”