I am a sucker for a fragrance with a nostalgic story. Not an “inspired by a walk through a sun-drenched meadow” story, a real one, with real people. Preferably, the kind where a name like Hemingway comes up and it’s not a marketing tagline, it’s the long-told truth.
Krigler’s America One 31 Nouvelle Edition ($675) has that kind of story. Several, actually.
It starts in 1929, when Lea Krigler—granddaughter of house founder Albert Krigler—married an American and followed him to New York. She opened the first Krigler shop in the U.S. inside the Plaza Hotel (it’s still there), and in 1931, released America One 31, the first Krigler perfume created on American soil. The original formula was tinted blue in a nod to the Statue of Liberty, which the brand says was a deliberate gesture toward hope at a time when the country was coming out of the Great Depression.
Then, Ernest Hemingway walked into the picture. The writer had met the Krigler family while sunbathing on Cap d’Antibes, that impossibly beautiful stretch of the South of France surrounded by jasmine fields. Back in New York, Lea caught him passing by the Plaza and offered him a bottle. He took it, he wore it and the rest is history.
JFK came to the fragrance differently. His father, Joseph Kennedy, was the U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. and used to bring the family to Cap d’Antibes—to the beach of la Garoupe, just behind the Krigler atelier. “As Kennedy and his family walked around, they came to our business and heard that Hemingway wore that fragrance,” shares Ben Krigler, fifth-generation perfumer and heir to the house. “Even though he was highly allergic, as a big fan of the writer, JFK bought the perfume. And even though the perfume was created in the U.S., it was on French soil that JFK discovered it.”
All these years later, consumers still come into Krigler shops asking for it by that association. “This request is becoming more and more important as clients want timeless perfumes,” says Ben. “They come to the store and mention that the preference has been passed down through generations.”
The Nouvelle Edition, released in honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States, stays true to Lea’s original lively citrus DNA, while going considerably more global in its sourcing. Calabrian bergamot, black pepper from Madagascar, mandarin from Morocco, a squeeze of Florida orange oil. As it wears, things get warmer and woodier via cumin from India, coriander, oakmoss from California, white flowers, violet leaf, white musks and cedarwood from Colorado.
“The new edition is even more international,” Ben proudly says. “Having the world in one perfume is a very important commitment.” The concentration of fragrance oil has increased to 25 percent, and natural ingredients now make up 92 percent of the formula, up from 80 percent. The blue tint of the original is gone—in its place, an optimistic golden hue from a higher dose of bergamot, which Ben likes to still highlight as that “fragrance of hope.”
If you’re the kind of person who wants your July 4th to smell like something with actual history behind it, and not a candle called “Firecracker,” America One 31 Nouvelle Edition is it. It’s fresh without being forgettable, and it carries the kind of weight that only comes from nearly a century of the right people wearing it at the right moments. Hemingway on the Riviera; JFK on the same French coast, allergies be damned. You, presumably, somewhere with a good view of fireworks and the day off.
