Akro

Akro is an independent fragrance house based in London's Ladbroke Grove, built around the idea of turning modern addictions and everyday pleasures into wearable scents. It was founded in 2017 by the French master perfumer Olivier Cresp and his daughter Anaïs Cresp, and launched to market the following year in 2018 [8]. The brand's name comes from the French slang word accro, meaning an addict or someone hooked on something they cannot resist [8].

The house remains in active operation, running a direct-to-consumer webshop that now carries thirteen fragrances, each themed around a pleasure or vice such as coffee, chocolate, tobacco, love and travel.

The idea for Akro began with Anaïs Cresp while she was living in Ladbroke Grove and working in pubs and bars, surrounded by the neighbourhood's distinctive aromas — flower stalls, coffee houses, leather and whiskey. According to the company, she wanted to bottle these everyday scents as wearable fragrances rather than the traditional floral or fruity offerings that dominate the market. She developed the project with her father, the perfumer Olivier Cresp.

Editorial accounts name a third founder, Jack Miskelly, Anaïs Cresp's partner, who handles sales and social media; in Olivier Cresp's description of the team, he creates the fragrances, his daughter leads branding, and Miskelly manages commercial operations [9].

Olivier Cresp is a well-established figure in French perfumery. He began his career at the fragrance manufacturer Firmenich in 1992 and was named a Master Perfumer in 2006 [7]. His earlier work includes widely sold commercial scents such as Thierry Mugler's Angel, Dolce & Gabbana's Light Blue, and Yves Saint Laurent's Black Opium. He continued in his role at Firmenich while co-founding Akro.

Sources broadly agree on the brand's timeline while differing slightly on dates. BeautyMatter records that Akro was founded in 2017 and launched in 2018 [8], while Cafleurebon, writing in 2019, dated the launch to roughly a year earlier — around 2018 [9]. The packet treats 2017 as the founding year and 2018 as the market launch.

At the time of the early editorial coverage, the collection comprised six scents, each an interpretation of an addiction: Dark (chocolate), Awake (coffee), Smoke (tobacco), Malt (whiskey), Haze, and Night [9]. The range has since expanded to thirteen fragrances, and some of the original names appear to have been retired or renamed, with the public theming softened from its more explicit early framing.

Akro operates under a parent company called Les Influenceurs [8]. According to BeautyMatter, the business is self-funded and has taken on no outside investors, and the wider team numbers more than twelve people [8].

Akro frames each fragrance as the scent of a craving or pleasure. The company describes the line as capturing "the essence of a hit, a high, a rush — the taste of everyday pleasures." Olivier Cresp characterises his method as figurative and minimalist, "using very few ingredients" [8], an approach he has summarised elsewhere as preferring quality over quantity: "One idea a year is enough, provided it's the best." The house positions itself within niche and gourmand perfumery, and its tagline, attributed to Cresp, is "Nothing revives a memory like scent."

The fragrances are organised by addiction theme, scent family and mood. Among them are Awake, a coffee scent the brand lists as a bestseller, alongside Dark (chocolate), Smoke (tobacco) and Night (love); a ten-vial Discovery Kit is also marketed as a bestseller. The collection draws on unconventional notes — including seaweed, hazelnut, cumin and whisky — combined with materials from Firmenich, the perfume house where Olivier Cresp works. Akro is sold directly to consumers through its own website.

Akro's press page displays the logos of publications it says have featured the brand, among them Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, Glamour, Marie Claire and The Telegraph; the page shows logos only, without article links or dates. The brand has also been the subject of a feature in BeautyMatter and a review and interview in the fragrance publication Cafleurebon, which described the scents as "striking even without knowing anything about the concept" and executed in an "imaginative, non-gimmicky manner" [9].

Akro is in current operation. Its website sells thirteen fragrances with live pricing and active social accounts on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, along with an ambassador programme, indicating an ongoing direct-to-consumer business as of 2026.