Antoine Desserrey
Antoine Desserrey, who often works under the evocative name Abou Jamil, is a French perfumer whose path into fragrance followed an unusually winding road. While many of his contemporaries arrived through chemistry degrees or formal apprenticeships at the great Grasseurery schools, Desserrey built his foundation through sheer curiosity and self-directed study. Growing up between France and the Middle East, he absorbed contrasting olfactory worlds: the restrained elegance of French apothecary traditions and the opulent, spice-laden culture of Arabian perfumery. This dual inheritance quietly shaped everything that followed. He eventually found his professional footing at the Roure perfumery school, where he refined a raw, instinctive approach into something more disciplined. Since then, Desserrey has built a catalog of more than two dozen compositions, working with a range of brands and independent labels. His career is a quiet argument that technical pedigree and personal vision need not arrive together; what matters is the patience to let one catch up with the other.
The hits
Notable creations
The signature
How Antoine composes
Desserrey gravitates toward raw, characterful ingredients rather than overly polished accords. He has a particular fondness for the dense, almost tactile materials of Middle Eastern perfumery: oud, frankincense, myrrh, amber, and richly spiced florals. Where French perfumery might whisper, his compositions tend to speak with a lower register, unapologetically warm and slightly smoky. He handles these heavy materials with surprising restraint, building structures where resins and woods frame rather than dominate. His florals often arrive with an earthy undertow, suggesting gardens rooted in mineral soil rather than cultivated beds. The overall signature is opulent yet considered, never ornamental. Each creation feels like it has been lived in for decades before reaching the bottle.
Philosophy
What drives Antoine
Desserrey approaches perfumery as a form of historical remembering. He has described his craft as an act of bringing vanished worlds back to life through scent, treating each composition less as a personal statement and more as a small restoration project. Materials carry memory for him: certain resins summon vanished souks, specific woods recall old libraries, particular florals evoke a grandmother's garden. This sensibility gives his work a narrative density that rewards slow attention. Rather than chasing novelty for its own sake, he prefers to dig through the past and resurface textures that feel forgotten. The result is perfumery that reads like fiction written in aromatic molecules, layered, specific, and emotionally inhabited.
The houses