Albert Fouquet was the son of a Parisian aristocrat who concocted his own perfumes in an upper room of the family chateau. At social events he would astonish guests with samples of his exquisite perfumes. At one such party, in 1937 on the Côte d’Azur, he met a young John F. Kennedy and introduced him to his newest sample. JFK was captivated by the scent and upon returning home he requested eight more samples “and if your production allows, another one for Bob.” While Albert didn’t fully understand the request, he was determined to fill the order in an elegant style befitting the scent he had created. He ordered his butler to source the finest glass perfume bottles in Paris and decorated each box with the pattern from JFK’s shirt on the night they met. Finally, for his own amusement, he labelled each bottle in reference to the American’s peculiar request: ‘Eight & Bob’. In the ensuing years ‘Eight & Bob’ became the preferred fragrance of style icons such as Cary Grant and James Stewart, introduced to the fragrance at decadent Hollywood soirees.
