ICONIC AUSTRALIAN

LUXURY GOODS

producer

THE

HOUSE OF HANLON

CREATES AN EXCEPTIONAL

COLLECTION

ROOTED IN THE FAMILY’S OUTBACK HERITAGE

FROM A HUMBLE RURAL FARM

SINCE 1875

From spruiking farm fresh backyard beauty concoctions in recycled Vegemite jars at The Rocks and Paddington Markets, to a multimillion dollar flagship store located on George Street Sydney (above) to right now. Retailing and delivering to 200+ countries worldwide. This is the legend of CHRISTOPHER HANLON®. Australia’s FIRST Perfumer®.

OBSESSION

MAKE-A-MOVEMENT

Each small piece was intricately handcrafted in Australia by artisans and designed by underground cult figure CHRISTOPHER HANLON®. The modern mythical foundations of the Christopher Hanlon® House began in Sydney during the early 1990s. The bohemian lived in the inner city suburbs of Surry Hills and Darlingthurst working in a makeshift studio with a group of rebel artisans. Hanlon® became an underground cult figure in a movement they dubbed The Maker Movement. It was a major D.I.Y youth reaction against an oppressive global corporate production of imported Australian luxury goods that had taken over the retail landscape. His life was culturally enriched by the companionship of what were deemed outsiders to mainstream society from teenaged poets to industrial designers (no one then could have imagined that young Belinda Alexandra would later become an international Best Selling Author or that make-up artist Cherie Laurent would transform into a singing cabaret sensation). The CHRISTOPHER HANLON® brand and its followers represented beacons of modern change – a shift in Australian culture. Championing artisan-made luxury and opening the doors for other maker-artists to follow. They were fresh, green and clean. This was the Maker Movement. These rare historical photographs (above + below) are important because they illustrate how each flagship store located in Sydney’s premium retail precincts was bursting at the seams with hundreds of the most exquisite, CHRISTOPHER HANLON® luxury goods. Today the House of Hanlon® endures for its exclusivity and artistic defiance, rather than mass-market volume, as the brand identity thrives on an underground network of artists, collectors and cultural iconoclasts. Artisan made and inimitable.

FEATURED ABOVE: THE STRAND ARCADE STORE WAS TRULY SPECTACULAR. FASHIONED BY CHRISTOPHER HANLON® WITH [HE]ART + SOUL IT ATTRACTED INTERNATIONAL VISITORS FAR AND WIDE. BRIMMING WITH ARTWORKS, AROMATIC CONCOCTIONS, LETTERPRESSED BOTTLE LABELS, ILLUSTRATED SIGNS, ELEGANT VISUAL DISPLAYS AND A HAND DRAWN LOGO ON THE WINDOW. BUT ABOVE ALL THE STORE WAS FILLED WITH BLOOMING LOVE.

A WORK OF (HE)ART

Today CHRISTOPHER HANLON® exclusively serves A most refined, elite and chosen clientele. Select from a Bespoke service or a Limited Edition Signature piece.

Distinguish yourself from the crowd. Inspired by a heritage of early Australian pioneers. Christopher’s family standards of workmanship, diligence and sense of business community carry this 145+ year old brand name into a new century of Australian history. Ross Hanlon®, President of HANLON® Luxury Goods explains (Sept., 2017): "Our family heritage informs our standards and drives my son to create his finest in handcrafted luxury: perfume, leather bags, scarves, jewelry, skincare and that treasured objet d'art.”

Today Christopher carries the family’s torch. Each piece is painstakingly designed by the HOUSE of HANLON® with a team of dedicated artisans: a leathersmith, a fabric printer trained in screen and digital print, a jeweller specialising in alloy and an organic cosmetic chemist. Master perfumer CHRISTOPHER HANLON® produces a limited range of eponymous Australian luxury goods. His artistic style and prized perfume notes are manifested even in the finest, most delicate of aromatic pieces. The company is still family owned. Privately funded with a colourful Australian outback heritage. As a youth Christopher, an eccentric maverick and larrikin, defied mainstream Australian fashion convention becoming a modern day pioneer in his own right (following the footsteps of his Great Grandfather Tom Hanlon® and Great Great Grandfather Daniel Hanlon®) albeit in the field of men’s organic cosmetics.

Today this bohemian art house has a devoted international clientele of some of the world’s who’s who and has appropriately introduced services for private clients. However no appointment is necessary for ready-to-wear artworks and the constantly evolving collection of limited edition signature goods. Experience this refined and sophisticated selection of authentic Australian icons, at your leisure.

VEGEMITE JARS + SYDNEY FESTIVAL = LOCAL DYNAMITE 

HIS-STORY

To cut a long story short CHRISTOPHER HANLON® began with a spark of suburban ingenuity – the CH® monogram a humble college project, born in recycled Vegemite jars in Geelong. By the early 1990s, word of mouth carried his family’s formula – an elixir of fresh Australian aloe and native oils – from the back streets of Surry Hills to the glossy pages of Vogue Australia. A $5,000 first prize from the Sydney Festival Poster Competition propelled the young designer’s name onto primetime television, as his graffiti-inspired doodle captivated a generation. What began as an underground experiment would quietly evolve into a beacon of aspirational, handmade Australian luxury.

Hanlon’s first products were sold from market stalls in recycled Vegemite jars. Even at this early stage, he had stumbled upon something many larger companies could only dream of – a pure moisturizer that kept you looking younger. The formula had been gifted to him by his mother, Delia Elizabeth Hanlon, known around Geelong and at Manifold Height’s Holy Spirit church as ‘The Wiz’. Christopher described it as a family recipe: ‘Similar to making a pot of fresh yoghurt for your face’, begining with cold pressed Aloe Vera infused with miracle oils including Calendula, Chickweed, Angelica, Frankinsence, Lemon Myrtle, Tea Tree, Neem, Plantago Major, Eucalyptus and Centella Asiatica. News of the concoction spread rapidly through word-of-mouth networks across Surry Hills, Kings Cross, Paddington, Bondi, The Rocks and Darlinghurst. As his formulas evolved, so did demand.

VOGUE

Perhaps the deal breaker, was simply some much needed cold cash. And a gorgeous helping hand. A twenty-something beauty editor at Australian VOGUE, Jane Druker, took shine to his beauty products. Lady Luck presented herself when Hanlon® unexpectedly won first prize for the Sydney Festival Poster Design Competition. The award brought a touch of street cred and appearance on Channel Nine News. His five dollar graffiti-style chalk doodle caught the attention of celebrated Australian artist Ken Done and the creative leadership of SAATCHI & SAATCHI. At a time when street-inspired art was till largely dismissed by the corporate establishment, the Sydney Festival Poster Competition – chaired by Ken Done and produced alongside SAATCHI & SAATCHI, Channel Nine and The Sydney Morning Herald – catapulted the curly-haired, freckled-face Hanlon from Sydney’s underground creative scene into the glossy pages of VOGUE Australia. The outsider cracked the jackpot.

THE $5,000 FIRST PRIZE MONEY ENABLED THE DEVELOPMENT OF HANLON’S COSMETIC PROTOTYPES INTO A DEPARTMENT STORE READY RANGE USING GREEN COSMETIC TECHNOLOGY

MINIMALIST SILVER

By February 1995 VOGUE Australia Beauty Editor Jane Druker had published a feature on the ‘Ozzie Miracle’ cream maker. Within months, media attention snowballed. George Bingham – the national cosmetics buyer for Myer/Grace Bros – discovered HANLON® in a four-page colour editorial spread within the emerging men’s lifestyle magazine Metropolitan Style. The editorial exposure alone carried an estimated promotional value of $15,000. Sensing the cultural shift before most others, Bingham moved quickly, securing HANLON® for an exclusive men's grooming contract with Australia’s largest department store chain.

By September 1995, Hanlon's repackaged and professionally manufactured grooming collection was being sold alongside Chanel, Gucci, Tiffany & Co and Calvin Klein. What had once been Delia Hanlon’s closely guarded neighbourhood beauty secret – crafted using backyard Geelong lemons from Ross Hanlon’s garden – had suddenly entered the national spotlight. By Christmas that same year, VOGUE Australia was championing HANLON® as a seasonal must-have.

FAMILY MATTERS

Today, CHRISTOPHER HANLON® remains a privately owned Australian luxury house with registered and pending trademarks spanning the globe – from Sydney, London, Paris and New York to Geelong. Quietly exported and collected internationally, the brand’s finely crafted artisan pieces have earned a devoted cult following and growing industry recognition. MARIE CLAIRE Hong Kong described Christopher Hanlon® as a ‘world trend leader in Australian cosmetics’, while Russian fashion authority L’OFFICIEL praised Hanlon’s celebrated formula as ‘the best lemon hand cream.’

DELIA AND ROSS HANLON

Resisting fleeting trends and mass-market imitation, Christopher Hanlon® draws deeply from his own unconventional artistic life, underground Sydney beginings and Australian heritage. Each creation is produced in homage to Delia and Ross Hanlon®, and in memory of his Great Grandfather Tom Hanlon® – grounding the house in continuity, family and craftsmanship rather than seasonal fashion cycles. What The Sydney Morning Herald once described as ‘a dream in a cream’ has since evolved into an enduring Australian luxury brand.

A discreet Sydney attraction whispered about among celebrities, fashion stylists and social luminaries, Hanlon® has reportedly attracted admirers ranging from Madonna and Kylie Minogue to Nicole Kidman. Yet despite international attention, the house remains intentionally elusive – an inside discovery passed between those seeking authenticity, artistry and a rare form of Australian homegrown luxury.

‘A SECRET SYDNEY ATTRACTION OF WHICH CELEBRITIES, FASHION STYLISTS AND SOCIAL LUMINARIES HAVE BEEN REPORTED TO BE FANS. Did WE mention MADONNA, KYLIE MINOGUE Or NICOLE KIDMAN?’

INTO THE GROOVE

SURRY HILLS | HEADQUARTERS

Without doubt, Hanlon® has always remained loyal to his roots. The reimagined house was founded in 1994 while Christopher was studying Art and Design in Australia, with a family heritage tracing back to 1875. Long before polished studios and luxury boutiques, Hanlon® operated from an industrial makeshift perfume and skincare workshop hidden inside a disused concrete warehouse located at Room 13, 50 Holt Street Surry Hills Sydney. Far from glamorous with permanently locked windows, cold concrete walls and a rat🐁 in the wall made the warehouse feel more like a prison cell👮 than a fashionable design studio.

Yet within this unlikely underground environment, something culturally distinctive was emerging. Surrounded by a collective of of young creatives – students of Art, Hat Making, Photography, Acting, Architecture, Literature and Science – Christopher and his eccentric friends assembled a small capsule collection of herbal products by night. By day, Christopher delivered orders throughout Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and Paddington on a black-and-chrome bicycle, quietly building a word-of-mouth following across inner Sydney. What emerged from the so-called ‘Dog Box’ was not merely prototype skincare and perfumes, but a new form of Australian creative identity – one blending underground art culture, handcrafted experimentation and aspirational design.

In 1995, the eponymous HANLON® brand was officially launched into Myer/Grace Bros. stores nationwide with four men’s skincare products and his signature fragrance. From this moment the trajectory accelerated. The Vegemite experiment, perfected inside a gritty Surry Hills warehouse, had entered the nation’s department store arena.

MYER | MY STORE

HANLON® entered the virtually untapped men’s grooming market at precisely the right cultural moment, alongside burgeoning global players Aramis Lab Series and Clinique for Men. Although Christopher himself was naive to the fact that the men’s grooming market was on the verge of exploding worldwide, the astute cosmetic and fragrance buyer at Myer was not. With an eye on the market’s pulse, George Bingham predicted what was to unfold. CH® looked revolutionary. Repackaged, in futuristic recycled spun-aluminium canisters and professionally reformulated with Australian made organic ingredients.

ORGANIC GROWTH

In retrospect, the concept was innovative. Plus it appealed to the younger generation – the media dubbed ‘Metrosexuals’. Hanlon® created something for himself but it was the type of grooming product a twenty-something health conscious male consumer was also looking for. Modern, minimalist, masculine and environmentally conscious. The brand established a sales reputation and continued to be marketed with guerrilla word-of-mouth, graffiti posters and sporadic print coverage. As Lady Luck had it, the brand was later announced as the ‘Number one men's selling skincare line in Myer, Sydney’.

SPIN ME ROUND

DJS | THE $OUND OF MUSIC

Subsequently, Hanlon® was poached by DAVID JONES – one of Australia’s most prestigious department store groups – and then expanded its footprint into numerous stores with extended product lines during 1997-99. HANLON® negotiated an exclusive arrangement with celebrated retailer Paul Zahra (later CEO of David Jones) whose strong fashion credibility and cinematic personal style aligned naturally with the brand’s emerging image. Editorial support soon followed from influential figures including Jane Druker of VOGUE, Victoria Meppem, Karen Upton-Baker and Gavin Darling of HARPER’S BAZAAR and MODE, alongside coverage from The Sydney Morning Herald and Channel 9. Hanlon® became widely recognised by Sydney media as an authority in men’s cosmetics and contemporary grooming culture.

Retrospectively, Hanlon’s underground Sydney movement was ahead of its time. The brand championed Australian organically farmed botanicals, minimalist eco-conscious packaging and artisan production values long before such ideas became mainstream consumer behaviour. Christopher Hanlon became associated with the emerging local ‘Maker Movement’, introducing countless younger consumers to ideas of provenance, craftsmanship, handmade production and ethical localism during a period dominated by multinational cosmetic conglomerates.

MADE IN THE BACKYARD

HANLON®’s grassroots ‘Made in the Backyard’ graffiti campaign evolved into a cult countercultural statement rather than imitating the polished language of international beauty houses, the brand openly celebrated D.I.Y energy, artisan pride, authenticity and Australian creative independence. Its trajectory – from Paddington market stall, to wide department store distribution, to flagship George Street presence – attracted significant public attention and press coverage, including features such as ELLE Hong Kong (2009). MODE magazine had described Hanlon’s skincare success as rivalling international cosmetic giants within the Australian market. HANLON®’s extended creative network included personalities from Sydney’s fashion, nightlife, fitness, design and entertainment communities, whose organic word-of-mouth advocacy helped propel the brand through Oxford Street culture, underground club scenes, creative circles and emerging youth subcultures of the late 1990s.

UP UP AND AWAY

His extended personal creative circle included super salesman Paul Rokobah, Alison Kallevh, Julie Serhorn and Miss Bolbierev, whose organic word-of-mouth advocacy with a sXXXy bend-and-twist helped propel HANLON® through Sydney’s creative communities and emerging youth subcultures. The brand developed strong resonance among creative community, becoming associated with individuality and cultural independence. Products such as Bumper-Bar Lip Balm™, Up Yours Mascara™ and Concrete Foundation™, reflected a distinctly Australian reinterpretation of grooming, nightlife and urban identity — helping HANLON® challenge the conventions of multinational cosmetic marketing during the period. While men’s bathroom staples such as Fit Skin Formula appealed to tradies and gym enthusiasts.

Above and Right: Poster artwork from the outré ‘Made in the Backyard’ campaign. These instant art style posters and stickers were stuck to local telephone poles, street bins, inside fanzines and popular venues at: Kings Cross, Oxford Street, Crown Street, Victoria Street, City Gym, Darlinghurst, Mardi Gras, The Phoenix, Graeme Aitkhein’s The Bookshop, The Shift, The Oxford Hotel, Darlo Bar, The Kirketon, The Arq, Kinselas, The Orient at The Rocks, Surry Hills and Paddington. CH® became an underground cult symbol for the next generation using cheap-as-chips marketing and D.I.Y posters. It was street style pride.

I HEAR MOTION

CULTURAL SHIFT

2000 – Having established a men's grooming department store niche brand Christopher opened his first prototype boutique. And around the same time HARPER’S BAZAAR Australia declared to its following that the brand was ‘IN’. A self branded store with eco-conscious cosmetic products opened in the heart of Sydney's THE ROCKS precinct at what is today known as the Cleland Bond and The Argyle stores. It was accompanied by pop-up stalls at The ROCKS market, Balmain market, the Brewery Yard and PADDINGTON markets.

THE STRAND ARCADE

Officially recognised as an Australian lifestyle niche brand (with a growing cult following) Hanlon was approached by the management at the STRAND ARCADE. HANLON® opened his second concept store, and first fully fledged boutique, at the Strand Arcade. He personally greeted customers for over a decade. This cemented the foundations to an important international network of devotees. Clients included billionaires like Rhonda Triguboff, millionaires, gang-stars, pop stars, not to mention his mates, the locals. Take for example gorgeous SHARON LEE. Australia’s Leading Brow Expert with her celebrity atelier (Hush, hush! Not to🤥mention: Kylie Minogue, Serena Williams, Beyonce, Leonardo Di Caprio, Russell Crowe nor the Kardashians). Hanlon’s® elegant Strand Arcade boutique was positioned with other fellow Australian designers ALEX PERRY, JAYSON BRUNSDON, LEONA EDMISTON, DINOSAUR DESIGNS, ZAPPACOSTA, ANDREW McDONALD, TERRY BIVIANO and AKIRA.

THE ROCKS

Ultimately Christopher opened his third Sydney boutique. Complete with an exquisite Australian made leather bag section – on George Street, The Rocks, neighbouring Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior. Young Korean superstar 송지효 (Song Ji-Hyo), known globally from RUNNING MAN soon became a client. What began as small town rumour gradually evolved into press reports linking Hanlon® to actors, musicians, television personalities, fashion editors and cultural insiders moving quietly through Sydney’s creative underground. Rumours spread that Linda and Paul Hogan (friends of JULIE McGREGOR of Hey Dad, A Country Practice and Son’s and Daughters) were devotees too.

Then came thE MEDIA WAVE

MARIE CLAIRE Hong Kong, under Art Director Angela Cheung, referenced the brand alongside NICOLE KIDMAN. Soon after followed ELLE Hong Kong, BELLE Australia, The Australian Financial Review, Women’s Weekly Singapore, GQ Australia, Time Out Sydney, Studio Magazines and The Sunday Telegraph. Behind the scenes, influential Australian creatives included David Novak Piper, Neale Whitaker and legendary Fashion Director Virginia van Heythuysen. The outback media frenzy continued with KYLIE MINOGUE, VOGUE Russia and a Russian campaign courtesy of L’OFFICIEL Russian Editor and influencer Evelina Khromtchenko.

Almost overnight, Hanlon® expanded beyond Sydney and into Hong Kong, where the brand spread virally through the fashion savvy, nightlife and underground creative culture. In retrospect, the period marked the beginning of Christopher Hanlon’s international beauty export movement – particularly into Russia and parts of Asia – driven not through corporate advertising, but through guerrilla word-of-mouth devotion, editorial intrigue and a distinctively Australian point of view. The brand evolved into a symbol of independent Australian luxury: part grooming house, part art project and part subcultural phenomenon. At a time when global luxury was becoming increasingly corporate and mass manufactured, Hanlon® represented something fresh – an eponymous Australian artisan whose brand rose to fame from local markets, boutiques, experimentation and genuine human connection. An Australian backyard legend was born.

Iconic. IrONIC.

Story© CH®

30 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE

SUSTAINABLE

AUSTRALIAN BORN