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.”