News
In his youth, Jean Jacques was a burgeoning musician. Who happened to be studying chemistry. “But I didn’t want at all to spend my life in some laboratory making chemistry. So I began to look for a bridge between music and chemistry.”
This bridge as it turns out would be the world of perfume. “There’s a lot of common language between perfumery and music,” explains Jacques.
“When you talk about harmony. In particular, I am drawn to the area of the blue note in jazz. This blue note is a note which is not made with the usual chords, so it sounds strange, but it’s an experience. Something very original and interesting. And I like to do find this in my fragrances. I like to use an ingredient that creates a new kind of harmony.”
Since 2019, Jacques has been creating said harmonies in fragrance as in-house perfumer for the legacy-rich French maison, Caron Paris. Thirty-four harmonies and counting, to be exact. Including the mouth-watering nuttiness of Aimez Moi Comme Je Suis Caron that mixes vetiver and hazelnut with the bright fizz of ginger and grapefruit. Or the dissonant and fiery notes found in The Duo of Poivre, which explores the contrasting warmth and sweetness of pepper.
Jacques’ tenure at Caron Paris began a year after the 120-year-old brand was acquired by an investment company owned by Baroness Ariane de Rothschild, a milestone that introduced a new wave of creativity and strategic direction. Baroness de Rothschild’s vision for Caron revolves around a commitment to excellence and sustainability, ensuring that the brand remains relevant in a modern context while respecting its rich heritage.
“When I first joined Caron Paris,” recalls Jacques, “My first job was to look at all those old formulas and to discover the incredible overdose of natural ingredients that we could find in these. We have a huge heritage in terms of formulation of the fragrances.”
Heritage is an understatement. Since its inception in 1904 by Ernest Daltroff, Caron Paris has been a name synonymous with luxury and creativity. Daltroff’s collaboration with Félicie Wanpouille led to the creation of iconic fragrances such as Nuit de Noël and the innovative brilliance of Pour Un Homme with its blend of vanilla and lavender that merge to create an almost chewable, mouth-watering caramel experiennce. Perhaps their most famous – infamous, even – is the masterpiece Tabac Blond. Launched in 1919, Tabac Blond was originally first made for men who found its blend of carnation, leather and lime flower too floral. But it found its true home among the modern women of the time, who appreciated its audacity.
“Caron Paris has always been about expressing your individuality,” adds Olivia de Rothschild, who, working alongside her mother and Jacques, has been responsible for the brand’s new contemporary aesthetic and bottle designs while also being the inspiration behind the brand’s most recent olfactive hit, Musc Oli.
“When they made the first tobacco perfume for women, it was a huge deal because no other brand had done this. Its duality of tobacco and carnation was made for men, but women adopted it and Caron were really smart about it. They decided to really push that message forward and empower women and their individuality, which I think is what makes the brand still so strong today.”
Today, Caron Paris remains dedicated to those same values of individuality and innovation while acknowledging the brand’s heritage. But even this, too, must evolve in order to speak to today’s man and woman, says Olivia. “I don’t like taking heritage and it’s pure form.
“I like to take the values that were representative within that heritage, that made that heritage so important. It’s more an aura, but it’s something at its core that made it stand out.”
And this innovation and adaptability is the heritage, agrees Jacques. “I don’t think we’d be true to to Caron Paris’ heritage if we didn’t innovate today because it’s such an important part of the brand since its creation.”
Under the Rothschild leadership, Caron Paris has also made sustainability one of its core pillars, acknowledging the preciousness of the raw materials it uses to build their compositions. The brand’s packaging is now eco-sourced and reusable, and their fragrance bottles are designed to be refillable. Caron’s dedication to sourcing rare and sustainable ingredients is evident in partnerships like the one with French lavender producer Jérôme Boenle, ensuring that the lavender used in Pour un Homme de Caron is of the highest quality and sustainably sourced.
The investment and revitalisation of the brand is one that is somewhat personal, says Olivia, whose mother Ariane was known to frequent Caron for gifts. “It’s a very important French brand and the French are so patriotic,” she laughs.
“When my mother acquired the brand in 2018, she acquired it for the brand heritage and the fact that Caron Paris is like a little mystery box where you’re always going to find something nice to give to people. It was her go-to gift place. She would always visit Caron if she had a trip to Caron to get a gift for whoever it was she was going to see. And Caron is known for that. And we’ll continue to do that, to create perfumes and express feelings through objects for the next generation of Caron.”
