HENRY JACQUES The Art Of Fragrances

Like its bespoke creations, the French haute perfume house has designed its exclusive boutiques to be timeless and showcase a distinctive style and elegance all of their own.
Inside the Singapore boutique
Henry Jacques boutique in Singapore

Since its founding in 1975 by Henry Jacques Cremona, French haute perfume Henry Jacques has forged a reputation for creating bespoke scents for elite members of society—from members of royalty to captains of industry. The soul of Cremona’s creations lies in a laboratory in the town of Grasse on the French Riviera, where more than 3,000 formulas are housed. These are comprised of natural ingredients painstakingly sought from around the world by the brand’s perfumers. From the essences to the bottles, every aspect of a Henry Jacques creation is created in-house to ensure that the quality of the brand’s offerings are maintained at an exceptional level.

The perfume house has only recently expanded its exclusive distribution with the opening of a highly select number of retail shops. Its first-ever retail presence debuted as a store-in-store at Harrods in London in 2014. This was followed by two stand-alone boutiques in Asia; the first at the Singapore luxury hotel Marina Bay Sands, and another located at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur shopping center. These boutiques offer a diverse range of products—from the brand’s Couture collection, Masterpieces collection, High Jewelry collections and Les Classiques collection. As tribute to their heritage, the Henry Jacques boutiques offer the brand’s bespoke perfume service.

To create the exceptional scents contained in each bottle, Henry Jacques perfumers take inspiration from a variety of sources, resulting in a dazzling concoction of notes and blends, colors and textures, to delight even the most discerning nose.

The private viewing room

A Palette of Essences

Henry Jacques perfumes are created only with the highest quality natural essences sourced from around the world, which are as varied as the flowers from which they are extracted. This wondrous palette of essences includes velvety rose, intoxicating tuberose, sunny lavender, sumptuous jasmine, soft, sensual, heady musk, and the subtle heat of marine ambergris. Like highly skilled alchemists turning metal into gold, Henry Jacques perfumers then work rigorously in their laboratories to bring out the quintessence of each of these premium ingredients.

To ensure that their presentation accurately reflects the quality of the product within, the finished perfumes are bottled in intricately designed crystal flacons or customized jewel-toned flasks made by the world’s leading crystal-glass makers and jewelers.

Mr Henry Jacques Cr emona in the laboratory

Les Classiques Collection

In 2014, Henry Jacques’s daughter, Anne-Lise Cremona, introduced the world to the Les Classiques collection, which is made up of 50 scents that come in 15ml or 30ml flacons. Les Classiques was born from a challenge: to create an exquisite selection of perfumes to represent the perfumer’s extensive and diverse body of olfactory work in a single collection. The 50 unique fragrances act as a gateway for newcomers to the Henry Jacques universe. Each perfume is designed to enhance the personality of the person who uses it. In essence, the perfumer becomes a matchmaker between customers and the ideal life they seek.

Fittingly for such an exclusive collection, each fragrance is housed in a minimalist crystal bottle specially designed by the brand’s Artistic Director, Christophe Tollemer. Each Classique is presented in a varnished wood case embellished with gold leaf, opening to reveal a bottle resting on a silk cushion.

Henry Jacques is also working to revive the pleasure and satisfaction of assembling one’s own personal perfume collection; an art that is akin to building an elegant wardrobe. To this end, the brand has come up with Caves à Parfums, a cabinet to hold crystal bottles from the Classiques de HJ line. Selecting perfumes from Henry Jacques wide range of fragrances has added meaning as you piece together your own mosaic of scents in this exquisite cabinet available in two sizes: 10 x 15ml and 15 x 15ml.

Les Classiques Collection

Les Toupies I
Les Toupies II

A Haven for the Senses

Henry Jacques has always been discreet about how it distributes its exclusive products, only setting up a retail presence as recently as 2014. The decision to do so was accompanied by months of consideration and reflection over how these boutiques could best reflect Henry Jacques’ brand values.

Tollemer led the creative process, designing each space as a haven to escape daily life; a place where customers can realize the most idealized versions of themselves through the brand’s offerings. Each of the boutiques feature cabinets of curiosities, elegant design, comfortable furnishings and discrete service to reflect the Henry Jacques legacy. While the perfume organ takes center stage, the collections themselves are hidden from sight, waiting to be discovered.

The Henry Jacques Singapore shop was its first stand-alone boutique. The space was inspired by the old-world charm and grandeur of historic Parisian apartments, but given a twist of modernity to suit today’s consumer tastes. “The entire boutique was conceived and assembled in France, and reassembled in Singapore by our team. This long process was the only way to guarantee uncompromised French craftsmanship. Like our perfume, each component is of rare quality,” says Tollemer.

Les Toupies: A Fairytale Fragrance

One standout piece from Henry Jacques Masterpieces collection is Les Toupies. This collection was creatively envisioned as part of a tale, with each perfume representing a character in a love story.

Les Toupies, which means Spinning Tops, are made up of couples: two unique and exclusive fragrances—one for men and one for women. These creations are designed to be timeless while showcasing a distinctive style all of their own.

The first two from the collection were “Mr. H and Mrs. Y,” followed by the next couple, “No. 16 de HJ and No. 81 de HJ.” Each fragrance is inspired by French romance and elegance. The perfumes are housed in extraordinary crystal flacons that took more than three years to develop and represent a technical and artistic breakthrough for Henry Jacques perfumes.

They are specially designed for those who are passionate about art and historic French craftsmanship, with every detail meticulously crafted by Tollemer. He created a bottle that is both multifaceted and symmetrical, but with no central point. Despite their intricate design, these crystal marvels sturdily hold the precious nectars within.

The men’s flacon is slightly larger than that for the women, but the curves of each appear to respond to each other in a reflection of their synergy. says Henry Jacques: “We imagined the Toupies collection as a great fresco, filled with myriads of stories and characters, like [Honoré de] Balzac’s ‘The Human Comedy.’ One Toupie after the other, one fragrance after the other, we wish to express the immensity and fragility of life and its many romances.”

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