LONDON — Penhaligon’s, part of Puig‘s portfolio of fragrance brands, on Thursday will debut “Eau So British,” an English heritage-centric exhibition in Shanghai during the city’s biannual fashion week, which runs from March 25 to April 1.
Julia Koeppen, global general manager at Penhaligon’s, said the exhibition will detail the brand’s 155-year history with archive items and images, a founder’s story, and royal connection, and showcase Chinese artist He Xian’s interpretations of the brand and its products.
The artist has created a play in the form of China‘s traditional shadow puppetry, reimagining the birth of Penhaligon’s first fragrance, Hammam Bouquet. Through a six-scene story, the artwork will show how the brand’s founder William Penhaligon drew inspiration from London’s Turkish baths on Jermyn Street, where he worked as a barber.
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“The brand is going well in China. The overall consumer base is fairly young, 30 more or less. What they love about the brand is the different pillars of storytelling, our portraits collection featuring animal heads, in particular. They just love to explore the universe,” Koeppen said.
The executive was in China at the beginning of March visiting key retail strongholds Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and observing how a new cohort of local competitors like To Summer and Documents is marketing culture as an integral part of their brand identity.
“I always find it fascinating. I just think we have so much to learn from the other end of the world. China is a bit more advanced when it comes to retail, service and all of those things. As a global team, you need to go out and bring back what you’ve learned on your journeys. All the Chinese local brands, they are very inspiring,” Koeppen said.
Penhaligon’s entered China seven years ago and has since expanded considerably, selling via 22 doors across top-tier cities. It has also built a sizable online presence, engaging with local influencers and celebrities like Mika Hashizume to promote the brand.
As of 2025, Penhaligon’s has one of the biggest China presences compared to its sister brands in Puig, which include Byredo, Dries Van Noten, Jean Paul Gaultier, Nina Ricci, Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, according to Koeppen.
“We’ve launched the brand with a more modern feel. People didn’t, necessarily, know all the history and heritage. They didn’t have a Penhaligon in their life during childhood. We felt the need for China to retail our heritage and history. Even though we have good brand awareness and people love us, not many know we are 155 years old that we have royal warrants, and that we have always had a very strong link to the royal household,” she added.
She called the brand’s founder “a true disruptor,” who decided one day to pack up three children and his wife and move from Cornwall to London with a dream of opening a barber shop, which he then did.
“He took society by storm and started supplying his goods to the royal household, which was quite unheard of, to have such a quick journey into the upper echelons of the society,” Koeppen said.
That quintessential Englishness is Penhaligon’s core strength in today’s market, especially in China, Koeppen touted.
“That’s what sets us apart throughout history from what used to be a French-dominated fragrance market. We brought the Britishness and the eccentricity, having fragrances where we take a little bit more risks,” she said.
“Our perfumers can focus on the craftsmanship, ingredients and homing in on the expertise, and going deep into certain segments, and just being a bit more inquisitive and getting to the bottom of it, rather than just creating something which needs to work with the majority of the population,” she added.
Looking at local preferences, Koeppen said the Chinese customers prefer lighter scents, like the Coveted Duchess Rose from the Portraits Collection, and Luna, a new fragrance with notes of orange, jasmine, soft rose and fir balsam.
Scents with strong royal assocations do well too, like Highgrove Bouquet, created in part with Highgrove, the private estate of King Charles III, as a tribute to the fragrant summers at the gardens there.
Then there are the ones from the Portraits collection that come with distinctive metal animal head designs on their caps. “People love these stories about the British aristocracy and learning about the characters,” Koeppen said.
The exhibition will be open to the public from Friday to April 6. It will then travel to London in the second half of 2025.
Koeppen said the exhibition will embark on a world tour next year with major cities in the Asia-Pacific region high on the priority list.
