Fragrance house

jlouisscherrer

Jean-Louis Scherrer opened his own couture house in Paris in 1962, after working at Dior with Yves Saint Laurent and later with Louis Féraud. The house introduced a boutique on Avenue Montaigne in 1971 and subsequently received haute couture designation; its visual language was associated with leopard motifs, polka dots, reduced shoulders, and a compressed waist, while its graphic style was linked to Scherrer’s interest in the Bauhaus era. Scherrer entered fragrance in 1979 with the eponymous Jean-Louis Scherrer perfume, followed by Scherrer 2 and Nuits Indiennes. In 1990, he entered an alliance with Seibu and Hermès, and he was removed from the fashion house in 1992 after control passed to partners. The fashion operations closed in 2008. Since 2011, JSB International, directed by the Bensoussan family, has owned the brand, which now presents itself as a former haute couture house focused on couture ready-to-wear and exclusive licensing. The 1979 perfume is the brand’s defining fragrance example: a green, bitter chypre.