PARIS — Trudon’s creative director Hugo Ferroux is opening a new chapter for the French niche candle and fragrance brand founded in 1643.
The lifestyle and luxury executive, who joined Trudon in March 2025, also steers the creative strategy of its sister company Carrière Frères, a French interior fragrance brand. He served for 12 years at Saint Laurent, starting in 2013 under the direction of Hedi Slimane, and most recently as head of design for its Rive Droite label, working closely with Anthony Vaccarello, including on retail.
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Prior to that, Ferroux assisted Mugler’s artistic director. He has long-standing experience with brands’ heritage and iconography.
To him, Trudon is a living narrative, heritage in motion. It is emblematic of France, with Ferroux likening it to the Manufacture de Sèvres for ceramics or Manufacture des Gobelins for tapestries.
“There is an idea of the great French classics, French pillars which attracted me enormously — and especially coming from luxury,” he said, during his first interview at the brand. Ferroux was also drawn to Trudon as storyteller.
“It’s a brand that is very preserved,” he continued. It comes with opulence, products in heavy glass bottles with a large, golden coat of arms. For a month, Ferroux collected images and delved into research related to Trudon. That became the pillar of his brand strategy.
“The idea is not at all to dynamite what has been done, but rather to elevate it,” Ferroux said. He wishes to return Trudon to its original essence, while translating it into today. More specifically, Ferroux wants to raise the perception of the elegant brand — improve its clarity and readability.
He plans to channel the tension between Trudon’s 17th– and 18th-century past and the present. While reworking its glass bottles, he revisited the brand’s original celadon color. That will be seen in the Figuerie collection he helped create, which is due out in March.
During his research, Ferroux learned that at the time Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie fashioned Louis XIV’s vegetable garden there was a demand for exotic fruits. So he created for the king a greenhouse, called la figuerie, in which to grow the figs he adored so the royal could eat the fruit all year round.
The Figuerie products’ scent pay homage to La Quintinie and Louis XIV.
“I wanted it to be quite noble in idea,” Ferroux said. The fragrance is meant to have the effect of entering a greenhouse on the first day of spring, after fig trees had been standing in pots there for six months.
“We have this notion of figs’ humidity and freshness,” Ferroux said, adding that is blended with luminous and earthy elements. He worked with Takasago perfumer Émilie Bouge on the fragrance, whose aromatic element comes from fig leaf.
The Figuerie candle, vaporizer and diffusers have the celadon packaging. It is to be launched worldwide in Trudon’s almost 1,000 doors, including its 12 freestanding stores, in about 60 countries.
“We will build this new evolution of the image step-by-step,” Ferroux said.
That includes retail. In late 2025, Trudon opened a second New York store, in Rockefeller Center. It was the first selling space Ferroux worked on for the brand. He became inspired by an apartment on Paris’ Rue du Bac in the 1980s. That had 17th-century moldings, and walls and ceilings covered with mirrors. There is also a nod to the Palace of Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors, among other concepts.
Today, France is Trudon’s largest country, followed by the U.S. and South Korea.
“It is the only market where perfumes are the biggest sellers compared to scented candles,” said Mathilde Corbin, marketing director at Trudon, referring to Korea.
Candles, of which Trudon has 25, remain the brand’s bestselling products overall. But she said fragrance sales are growing quickly. Trudon has 13 perfumes today.
“Geographically, the house is turning more and more toward China,” Corbin continued.
Trudon plans to open a boutique in Shanghai in 2026. In the U.K., the brand is reworking its stand.