Fragrance house

Vilhelm Parfumerie

Vilhelm Parfumerie was founded in New York in 2015 by Jan Ahlgren, who developed the house with Robertet perfumer Jérôme Epinette. Ahlgren came to perfumery through leather handbag design: after wanting to scent his leather products, he learned about fragrance-making and established the brand. At its 2015 debut, Vilhelm presented eight fragrances in intricately designed bottles marked by a saffron-yellow label. The house’s work is framed around narrative, contrast, and collaboration, connecting past and present, imagination and reality, vintage and the unprecedented, and New York and Paris. Its visual identity, developed with designer Pierre Dinand, pairs a retro bottle structure with a saffron-yellow label inspired by a Bakelite object found at a Paris flea market. On 6 November 2018, Swiss company Creative Perfume Company SA acquired Vilhelm Parfumerie and its products; Ahlgren remained as artistic or creative director, responsible for new fragrances and related products. Morning Chess carries a personal thread in the brand’s story, linking the smell of freshly cut grass at Ahlgren’s family summer home in Falkenberg, Sweden, with mornings spent playing chess with his father and grandfather.