Curations: Luxury perfume maison Henry Jacques opens a haven for handcrafted fragrances in Hong Kong
- The French brand’s new stand-alone boutique at Elements mall is its third location in Asia, offering bespoke services in a cosy, home-like setting
- Among the curated scents on offer is the Les Toupies collection – three pairs of complementary fragrances in bottles shaped like spinning tops
With the opening of a new boutique in Hong Kong, French fragrance maison Henry Jacques has created another home abroad for its artisan heritage, family traditions and handcrafted scents.
The location at Elements mall in West Kowloon is the haute parfumerie’s third stand-alone boutique in Asia, following those in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. It continues Henry Jacques’ venture into the world of retail after decades of offering its bespoke services exclusively from France.
Henry Jacques made its name with scents custom-made for individual clients using natural oils and essences sourced from around the world. Its library of artisanal perfumes has grown to more than 3,000 original creations today.
In recent years, Anne-Lise Cremona, the founder’s daughter and CEO of Henry Jacques, has guided the family business into a new era, opening the perfumery to a wider audience. In addition to launching several retail boutiques across the globe, she has made select scents from the maison’s library available to the shopping public.
For the new boutique in Hong Kong, Tollemer designed an elegant space reminiscent of a historic Parisian apartment. The solid oak interiors for the 460 sq ft shop were conceptualised and fully assembled in France, before being vacuum-packed, shipped and then reassembled in Hong Kong. Tollemer follows this process in order to preserve authentic French craftsmanship at every Henry Jacques location worldwide.
The dark oak cabinets and paneling, hand-sculpted basswood mouldings and hand-stained, chevron-patterned flooring can be glimpsed through the storefront windows at Elements mall. Upon entering the boutique, shoppers are greeted by the “perfume organ”, a floor-to-ceiling display made of white Corian that is filled with shelves of flasks, beakers and containers of essences.
Flanking the perfume organ – a design feature found in all Henry Jacques boutiques – are two niches, also crafted in Corian, displaying 50 hand-blown crystal flacons of different fragrances. These comprise the Les Classiques collection, a curation of scents from the brand’s library that best represent its expertise.