Jo Malone comes home
Jo Malone has told how, by an extraordinary twist of fate, she is returning to the same Belgravia shop where she worked as a 16-year-old girl before going on to build her multimillion-pound fragrance empire.
The entrepreneur, who is renowned for her luxury scents and candles, has launched her first Jo Loves boutique at 42 Elizabeth Street. Incredibly, it is the same shop where she was employed as a florist more than 30 years ago.
“As a young florist I worked within a flower shop surrounded by the scent of fresh blooms all day,” she said. “I literally absorbed everything around me and instantly fell in love with fragrance.
“Thirty years later, life has unexpectedly taken me full circle, and this October I’m coming back to the flower-shop location to launch the first Jo Loves store at the very same address.”
Perfumes from the new collection are inspired by flowers, with one fragrance even named No.42 The Flower Shop, in a direct reference to Malone’s former links with the address.
“I loved going to the Covent Garden Flower Market early each morning and the magical moment of returning to the shop, lifting the flowers from their boxes and allowing them to breathe,” she said of her previous job on Elizabeth Street.