How Henry Jacques created its 2024 Collection de l’Atelier limited edition fragrance from a single rose harvest, according to CEO Anne-Lise Cremona – and how the bespoke French perfume house honours tradition

May 2 , 2024

The 2024 Collection de l’Atelier limited edition of 500 bottles, a release that typifies aspirations of French perfume house, Henry Jacques. Photos: Handout

The French family perfumery’s mission includes attention to detail, quality and sustainable practises – and Anne-Lise Cremona has taken up the mantle from her dad, namesake founder Henry Cremona

Rejecting trends and cycles of mass-market retail brands has paid off: Henry Jacques has expanded carefully into Asia in the past decade, from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, to Hong Kong’s Elements mall

If you do not consider yourself a perfume person, Henry Jacques may just be the fragrance of choice for you.

No one grasps the challenge of shopping for a scent that suits your style better than Anne-Lise Cremona, who is both the CEO of French Henry Jacques brand and the daughter of its namesake founder. “In the 90s, the perfume industry completely changed from a more artisanal, very high-end way of making perfumes,” she says.

“Suddenly, we had to serve the world somehow. At that time, Henry Jacques and my family, because it’s still a family company, decided not to follow this trend because they loved what they believed was the best – and so did their connoisseur clients.”

As Cremona puts it, Henry Jacques has “stayed in the shadows” ever since, perfecting its very own art of bespoke perfumery that no other brand can imitate – let alone catch up with, as consumers show renewed interest in crafting their own individual scents as opposed to grabbing a generic perfume off store shelves.

“A journalist said to me in Paris, ‘The niche is killing the niche,’ because every day, you have 300 brands with just a bottling difference. This is the discourse I had 10 years ago with Harrods,” she says of the brand’s very first boutique opening back in 2014.

“They said, look around you, there’s space for [bespoke fragrances].”

Rejecting the typical trends and cycles of mass-market retail consumerism has since paid off in spades for the brand. It has expanded carefully, with great consideration behind the feel of each boutique, into Asia over the past decade – starting with Singapore, then Kuala Lumpur, followed by Hong Kong’s Elements store in 2021. The oak wood interiors of the Elements store were fully built in France before being shipped and reassembled in Hong Kong.

Oak-wood panelling at Hong Kong’s Henry Jacques shop in Elements mall

There’s a strict amount of science behind all the perfume artistry, in favour of a more tailored approach. The brand’s esteemed laboratory leans on sourcing and using more concentrated niche essences from the natural world instead of chemically manufactured ingredients – it uses organic, undenatured (non-chemically enhanced) alcohols – as the base for most fragrances.