Wer ist jo malone

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Jo Malone is still in the test-and-see phase of her second brand, Jo Loves, launched from her kitchen table in 2011, she tells Vogue Business in Dubai, where she’s on a working holiday. Every morning, she wakes up and tests out new fragrance ideas. “There could be a billion pounds up there,” she laughs, pointing out the apartment where she is keeping all her fragrance notes in a basket. “Or nothing, who knows?”

Back in 1999, the London-born entrepreneur sold her eponymous fragrance brand Jo Malone to Estée Lauder for “undisclosed millions”, remaining creative director after the sale. However, she stepped away entirely from business in 2006 after being diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and losing her sense of smell during intense rounds of treatment.

From 2006 through until 2011, Malone was also restricted by a non-compete agreement that prevented her from creating fragrances for five years. When that period came to an end — and she herself was on the mend — she launched Jo Loves, a self-funded venture. Her mission right now? To make her brand a Gen Z favourite worldwide with a mix of gender-neutral launches, new lines including paint-brushes for fragrance, and a wholesale model pushing heavily into the Middle East and Chinese luxury department stores with its £115 Pomelo fragrance.

Her sense of smell came back eventually. Malone has synesthesia, a neurological condition where the stimulation of one sense can cause an involuntary reaction in another. In her case, she can experience smells visually. “I remember so vividly, I saw a [candy cane] and the colours were so vibrant, I could smell again. I could smell blossoms and redcurrants, in a really different way. I'm grateful for that. It didn't make me walk in the same footsteps as before.”

The early years of Jo Loves were not easy, Malone admits. The brand and its founder struggled to find their feet in terms of positioning and communication. “I was sad every day, it knocked my confidence,” she says.

She had to remind the world that she was no longer part of her eponymous brand. “I thought when I walked away, people knew I’d left. But, I still get people coming up to me saying ‘I love the pale freesia scent’ — I very politely tell them that I didn’t create it.” There are no hard feelings, she insists. “I wish the [Jo Malone] brand the best and the world is absolutely big enough for both of us.”

Jo Loves sells in major luxury retailers across the world. 

Malone is in the Middle East with her husband and business partner Gary Wilcox, whom she describes as the essential “nuts and bolts” of her previous and current business. On Malone’s birthday in 2013, Wilcox presented her with a set of keys to a small store on London’s Elizabeth Street, the exact site where Malone had worked as a florist aged 16. “He told me to go and be a shopkeeper again,” Malone says. “I get a sense about things, and from the second I stepped into Elizabeth Street, I knew we were going to build another global brand.”

Finding the right partners

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Jo Loves was in the middle of an international rollout. “We made a conscious decision to move outwards and keep going, keep pushing on,” Malone says. That included entry into new markets including China, Korea and Australia. “Don’t tell me you need posh offices and a big boardroom,” she says. “You need creativity, a great team, great partners.”

The company partners with distribution group SYoung in China and department store Shinsegae in South Korea. Sales have exceeded expectations, she says, though Jo Loves declined to disclose sales figures. The Middle East is also a key market for Jo Loves, which partners with luxury retail and distribution group Al Tayer and luxury e-tailer Ounass.

US and UK Google trends analysis firm Spate says searches for the brand name top over 21,000 on average monthly in the UK. In the US, awareness is much lower with less than 1,000 monthly searches (Spate doesn’t collect data for APAC and the Middle East).

Storytelling is more important than ever

The fragrance market has radically changed since Malone launched her first brand. Jo Loves is targeted at Gen Z consumers who want “more information, more stories” for fragrance, the founder says.

These consumers want to learn about the brand and the products, Malone says. By telling the story, they become part of the creative process. “When I created before, it was very much about me as a creator, creating for the consumer.”

In 2017, Malone developed her fragrance paintbrushes, a fragrance gel that comes in a tube with a paintbrush, aimed at young consumers and retailing at £40. “It allows you to be your own canvas,” she says. “I gave it to all my son’s friends and they said it was the coolest thing.” The paintbrushes are “flying” in the Chinese market in particular, with customers posting across Douyin, the Chinese TikTok platform. On TikTok, the hashtag #JoLoves has over 750,000 views.

Jo Loves paintbrushes have become a bestselling product, especially in Asia-Pacific.

Consumers are increasingly searching new fragrance formats and ingredients on Google, says Yarden Horowitz, founder and analyst at trends insights platform Spate. Monthly searches for solid perfume are up 8 per cent in the US and 12 per cent in the UK since last year, she says, but search volumes remain relatively low across both territories, so it could be a “risky trend”. Elixir, the super strong, long lasting perfume format is up 134 per cent in the UK and 358 per cent in the US.

In Dubai, Malone is also working on her second collection for Spanish retail giant Zara, which first tapped her to head up its gender-free fragrance line, Emotions, in 2019. She’s enjoying her work with Zara, but one dream commission still eludes her — the creation of a fragrance for Chanel. “Gabrielle Chanel is one of my heros,” she says. “Why not dream big?”

She has no immediate desire to prep the business for sale. “Am I to sell Jo Loves and retire on a desert island? No way,” she says. “I’ve got too many ideas left — good ideas! I want to create fragrance until the day I die.”

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