Henri Alméras: A Floral Scent Beyond a Bouquet, Brought to Life in Joy

A Life in Perfumery

Henri Alméras was born in 1892 at a garrison in Brittany, in northwestern France, the son of an army officer.

He specialized in chemistry at school. In 1913, he enlisted for military service, and the following year he went to war. While fighting on the Macedonian front in 1916, he met Jean Patou. Patou had served in the army from 1905 to 1908 and founded his own company in 1914, but had been called back into military service.

We first met in Thessaloniki in 1916. I was manning a cannon in a ravine. He (Jean Patou) was climbing to the summit with a unit of Zouaves, and I was told, “Go and see the Zouaves. It is worth it.”

Henri Alméras

On returning to France, he joined the physics laboratory of the tire manufacturer Dunlop. Later, an advertisement he saw in Le Journal led him to join Antoine Chiris in Grasse. Here he trained as a perfumer for four years under Ernest Beaux (in Japanese) and Vincent Roubert. Henri Robert (in Japanese) also appears to have been there at the time.

Having caught Paul Poiret’s attention, Henri Alméras is said to have composed at least 20 perfumes between 1915 and 1925 for Poiret’s fragrance line, Parfums de Rosine. After leaving Paul Poiret in 1925, he worked with Henri Robert at Parfums D’Orsay, but soon left.

He then reunited with Jean Patou, whom he had met earlier, and began creating perfumes and scented body oils for him. At the time, Jean Patou was beyond reproach as a haute couture house, but lacked a fragrance that symbolized the brand in the way that Lanvin and Chanel (in Japanese) had. In 1930, Patou therefore decided to sell an extraordinarily expensive perfume that Alméras had made without intending it for sale, using lavish quantities of natural essential oils. This became the celebrated fragrance Joy, a signature of the house. Alméras worked for Jean Patou until around 1933; Patou, incidentally, died in 1936.

For the essence of the fragrance Henri Alméras composed in 1930 lies not in embodying the characteristics of individual flowers, but in expressing the very idea of a flower. Joy is neither rose nor jasmine, neither ylang-ylang nor tuberose. It is a magnificent, luscious fragrance.

Luca Turin, Perfumes: The Guide

After leaving Jean Patou, he appears to have created fragrances and served as an adviser for several brands, including Fragonard.

He died in 1965.

Henri Alméras was an energetic man with original ideas. He had an aggressive personality, and his perfumes were quite distinctive.

Henri Robert

Perfume Creations