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.
Further inside the boutique are plush, intimate spaces that emphasise the personalised services offered by the perfumery. Shoppers can settle into an alcove or cosy lounges, which have been decorated with lithographs by Japanese artist Aki Kuroda and a Porta Romana Bianca chandelier, and furnished with velvet stools and Bergère 1930s armchairs. Curtains provide privacy for them to choose a favourite scent at their own pace.
The inner sanctum of the shop also includes hidden cabinets and antique chests holding accessories and historic flacons along with the bottles of Henry Jacques’ Les Exceptions collection.
This collection matches signature fragrances with distinctive bottle designs to create a sensory experience that has an added touch of emotion. These qualities are evident in Les Toupies, or “The Spinning Tops” – three pairs of complementary fragrances that were recently introduced to the Les Exceptions collection and are currently available at the Hong Kong boutique.
Tollemer designed the sets of crystal flacons for this limited-edition line to resemble toy spinning tops, with intricate, hand-crafted facets that capture and reflect the light. They highlight the tones of the different perfumes while also giving a playful feel to each scent duo.
The first Les Toupies pairing is Mr H and Mrs Y, definitive fragrances from the Henry Jacques library. They are intended to represent a love story, with masculine and feminine scents striking a balance between bold and delicate notes. Mr H is contained in a slightly larger rounded flacon than its mate and has notes of cedar leaf, geranium, sandalwood, tobacco, amber and patchouli, while Mrs Y features ylang-ylang, rose damascenia, jasmine, iris, lily of the valley and tonka bean.
The second set on offer is No 16 and No 81, an avant-garde combination that still represents the traditional concepts of haute perfume making. Both fragrances are intricately layered with lesser-known ingredients – No 16 has a lively floral opening followed by a trail of honeyed scent notes, with Rose de Mai at its heart, while No 81 begins with bergamot and a dash of grapefruit before deepening into subtly spiced layers of smoke and wood that include Dehen el Oudh. The flacons reflect these more modern blends, with strong angles and clean lines.
The third and final duo in the collection is Fanfan and Galileo. This is another romantic pairing, meant to express exuberance and intimacy with a European flair, presented in a matched set of smoothly curved bottles. Fanfan presents itself like a typical Parisian perfume, with straightforward notes of saffron and rose damascenia with a hint of lavender. That last note creates a link to Galileo, which blends lavender and Italian mandarin with tobacco, myrrh and amber to produce a manly yet decadent scent.
Perfume connoisseurs can visit the new Hong Kong boutique to explore the olfactory and visual artistry of the Les Toupies line while also immersing themselves in the world of exclusivity that has been carefully created by Henry Jacques.