KILIAN PARIS: Discovering Perfume at the Bar

The whole store always revolves around a bar.
Kilian Hennessy

Contents

The First Boutiques
1. From Moscow to New York
2. The First Paris Boutique
The Thinking Behind the Stores
Boutiques to Visit
References

The First Boutiques

Kilian Hennessy founded his own perfume house in 2007. He wanted to bring the luxury of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century perfumery into the present: bottles that could be refilled once empty, and boxes worth keeping after the perfume had been taken out. In time, boutiques would offer a place to bring that world together in a single space.

From Moscow to New York

The brand’s first standalone store opened in 2012 at Crocus City Mall, outside Moscow, and was run by a local distributor. Kilian’s perfumes already had a following in Russia, where the founder himself was a frequent visitor. With the collections brought together in a black-and-white interior, the store gave the house a place to present its full identity beyond a department-store counter.

In the United States, the perfumes had been sold at New York’s Bergdorf Goodman since 2007. When the time came to open a standalone store, the search for a property took more than a year and ranged across Manhattan. The eventual choice was Washington Street in the Meatpacking District, an area of luxury stores, yet a little away from the main thoroughfares. The brand’s first US boutique opened there in 2013.

The designer entrusted with the interior was Chahan Minassian, who had also worked on the Paris showroom and Moscow store. In New York, he designed furniture and rugs as well, extending Kilian’s aesthetic from the perfumes to the furnishings.

The brick walls and high ceilings were retained, with glossy finishes added. Art Deco elements brought another layer to an interior that preserved the industrial character of its surroundings. The black-and-white, living-room-like space featured a silk-and-metal ceiling light made in Japan, a silk rug from Nepal and lamps by Peter Lane. The store brought together the local building and handcrafted furnishings from around the world.

Apple Brandy was created for this store. A perfume marking the opening, its name brought together New York’s nickname, the Big Apple, and the Hennessy family’s history of making spirits. Composed by Sidonie Lancesseur, it would later become the starting point for Apple Brandy on the Rocks. Opening a store in a new city had also become an opportunity to express that city in scent.

The First Paris Boutique

In 2014, a boutique opened at 20 Rue Cambon in Paris. The 55-square-metre space was the brand’s third store, after Moscow and New York, with Minassian once again involved as co-designer.

Behind the glossy black façade was a salon reminiscent of a Parisian apartment. Decorative wall mouldings and 1920s-style furniture defined an interior with distinct areas for each collection. Kilian’s wish to give every store its own design identity found expression in Paris through the intimacy of a home.

More openings followed, including a second Paris boutique in the Marais. Today, the house also has boutiques in New York, Milan, Doha and Dubai, among other cities. From the early black-and-white salons to bars where people gather around perfume, the stores have continued to find new forms of expression.

The Thinking Behind the Stores

The bar concept took shape after the brand joined the Estée Lauder group, as Hennessy considered how a retail space could express his own personality and that of his creations.

I came up with the bar concept, which became the centrepiece of every boutique.
Kilian Hennessy

Bringing together a place to enjoy drinks and a place to choose perfume also led to Les Liqueurs, the collection inspired by spirits.

Launched in 2020, Angels’ Share carries memories of visits to the Hennessy cellars with his grandfather and of oak barrels steeped in spirits. The bar counter and the perfume bottles shaped like drinking glasses each express, in a different way, the world in which the founder grew up.

The staff who guide visitors through the perfumes need both expertise in scent and an ability to entertain. When it comes to the purpose of opening a store, Hennessy places particular value on this:

Offering customers a unique experience that gives them something they cannot find online.
Kilian Hennessy

This is why the house invests in staff training. Even at the first US boutique, the aim was to make visitors want to return, whether they bought something or simply tried the perfumes.

The principle of refilling and continuing to use a bottle also finds expression in the stores.

Kilian Hennessy

The luxury fragrance house Kilian Paris is now a frequent topic among perfume lovers in Japan, too, and has suddenly bec...

Boutiques to Visit

Rue Cambon, Paris

The first Paris boutique records an early stage in the translation of the brand’s design language into interiors. In the original salon, the acanthus-leaf ornament found on the perfume bottles and boxes was carried into the marble floor, as though reflected there. Belgian black marble and Art Deco elements added depth to the black-and-white palette.

Bouclé fabrics and black satin on the furniture set softer textures against the hard, gleaming stone. A carved low table sat alongside ceramic lamps by Peter Lane. Rather than lining up bottles uniformly, the interior gave each collection a place among these furnishings, allowing its particular world to emerge.

The boutique now has a Kilian bar. Perfume shelves rise behind a predominantly black counter, with metallic stools arranged in front. The layout invites visitors to gather around perfume across a counter, rather than browse bottles standing up.

Illustration of the black-and-gold counter, stools and perfume shelves at Kilian’s Rue Cambon boutique. — The counter at the Rue Cambon boutique (illustration)

The Cambon bar also served as a model for the Prince Street boutique in New York, which celebrated its opening in 2025. This SoHo store is a separate address from the Washington Street location that became the brand’s first US boutique in 2013.

Le Marais, Paris

The second Paris boutique, which opened on Rue Vieille du Temple in 2025, takes the bar-centred design approach into a more structured way of discovering perfume.

On entering, visitors find the Kilian Bar at the centre of the space. A Carrara marble counter, black oak and brushed bronze create an atmosphere reminiscent of a Parisian hotel bar. Refills line the wall, with shelves holding perfume decanters and velvet chairs completing the interior.

Illustration of Kilian’s Marais boutique, with stone walls, red chairs, and black-and-gold shelves and counters. — The salon at the Marais boutique (illustration)

Here, discovering perfume takes its cue from choosing from a bar menu. Around the time of the opening, visitors were welcomed with a “Shot of the House”: three scents presented without their names. It offered a chance to discover which fragrance appealed before learning its name or reputation.

The menu at the time included a “Tasting” to explore the collections, a consultation for visitors already familiar with the brand who wanted a change in their fragrance wardrobe, refills and the creation of gift boxes. Trying perfume was not simply a matter of smelling many bottles at once; visitors could choose how to spend their time according to what they wanted to learn or find.

Changes in lighting and music also allowed the boutique to take on the atmosphere of a club for a brief interlude.

Milan

Opened in 2025 as the brand’s first Italian boutique, the Milan store is on Corso Giacomo Matteotti. It represents a new generation of stores, one the founder wanted to make a model for future openings.

Refills line the wall to the left of the entrance, placing the idea of replenishing a bottle rather than throwing it away at the very start of a visit. Beside them, an alcove holds the signature perfumes Good girl gone Bad and Love, don’t be shy. The spirits-inspired collection and gifts each have their own small spaces, too.

At the bar in the centre of the store, visitors can receive advice tailored to their tastes.

The Dubai Mall

The Dubai Mall boutique opened in 2019 with marble and a palette of white, black and gold, arranged around a perfume bar. Hennessy said he had spent six or seven years finding the right location in the mall.

At the opening, the bar offered a “Tasting” to help visitors find a favourite, alongside “Mixology” consultations to choose a perfume to layer with a scent they already wore. Advice on gifts pairing perfume with a clutch was also available. A single counter brought together choosing a fragrance, wearing it and giving it to someone else.

The Dubai Mall still has a KILIAN BAR today. Here, the store concept that grew out of the Paris salons meets the pleasure of layering scents, long enjoyed in the Middle East.