It is an irony that Crown perfumery started from a 19th century London-based corsetry business. American William Sparks Thomson made corsets for the more ample ladies of London – one of whom happened to be Queen Victoria eventually leading to him taking on the ‘Crown’ trademark.
Tight corsetry at the time caused attacks of fainting and William Thompson’s son, William Jr – an enterprising chemist began to produce a lavender based smelling-salt as a reviving stimulant for his fathers’ rather giddy clientele. This ingenuity was the foundation of Crown Perfumery established in 1872.
Crown became a very fashionable perfumery amongst London’s elite and by the end of the 19th century William Jr had produced 49 perfumes that sold worldwide.
The business began to decline after the death of William Thompson Sr and was eventually sold to Lever Bros – now Unilever, who with no obvious interest in fine perfumery closed the fragrance label in 1939.
This was not the end of the story as in 1993 the fragrance line was revived and a boutique was opened in London to reproduce and sell Crown's most successful fragrances.
In 2000 Clive Christian, the now owner, closed the boutique saving only eight of its popular scents. In 2001 Christian launched his own scents and by 2002, Crown had nearly disappeared yet again.
The Heritage
2001
‘Clive Christian revived the original values of the House to create pure perfumes in complex formulas with the most precious natural ingredients from the corners of the British Empire.
This vision led to the creation of the Definitive Collection of perfumes - 1872, X and No.1 that were to be recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as The World's Most Expensive Perfume.’ www.clive.com
2002
‘Anglia-Perfumery was founded with the stated aim of revitalising precious treasures threatened by obsolescence, as some of the old traditional English manufacturers had started to "go with the times" and were discontinuing fragrances when demand slackened or creating new scents lacking in the essentials of the art of English perfumery.
Anglia Perfumery has pledged to maintain the English scent tradition and commenced the range with formulae dating back to 1900: Royal Court and Imperial Lime.We revitalised and slightly modified some of Crown Perfumery’s discontinued fragrances and created new fragrances in the traditional English manner’
This is a beautiful line of fragrances that really deserves to be noticed. Simply bottled and currently distributed from Berlin – you will discover a heritage of fragrance that could have easily vanished all together.
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