Jean Robert

Jean Robert

Jean Robert takes its name from Jean Robert Charles, a Haitian-born high school French teacher who played for Haiti's national team and ran a men's clothing store called Justin's. Tennis was for recreation, and taken very seriously all the same. What the son remembers is a father who always smelled good, of citrus, spice and wood, and who kept a tray of bottles a child could hold and spray.

Justin Charles came to making fragrances from online media, design, technology, academia and political organising, after ordering an introduction kit online out of curiosity, with a five-month-old daughter at the time. Blending accords came first. Everything is hand-crafted in small batches and filtered several times, with sediment or cloudiness sometimes showing for the natural material in it.