What if Dubai became a new centre for perfumery?

# What if Dubai became a new centre for perfumery? Luxury Activist | The Notebook LA (Luxury Activist) 13 Nov 2026 https://luxuryactivist.com/carnets/friday-column-3-dubai-and-perfumery/ ## In brief Dubai is building up its perfume studios and training facilities in a region where fragrance has long been part of daily life. Maisons across the Middle East draw on oud and practices such as scenting clothes with bakhoor smoke. I can see the city earning a lasting place in world perfumery. Grasse and Paris come to mind almost as soon as anyone mentions perfume. Both played a large part in the birth of modern perfumery. My imagination tends to travel further, though. Ancient Egypt, China, Japan, Brazil and the United States conjure up very different places and smells. Perfumery is a living art, open to the emotions, stories and places that move us. The Middle East has long fed that imagination, through the tales of the Arabian Nights and a culture in which fragrance is part of everyday life. Today’s interest in oud grows out of that history. Could the region become a new centre for world perfumery? ## A place, a story A Japanese temple, an imperial palace in China, the Brazilian jungle, a French lavender field or a beach in Malibu, California, can all suggest a smell. Our memories and cultural references shape the association. A picture of a place is sometimes enough to bring to mind a perfume that might belong there. In France, perfume has long been bound up with fashion and beauty. It contributes to an overall look, to the way someone presents themselves. Chanel’s jasmine and rose from Grasse, Guerlain’s vanilla and Mugler’s strange sophistication each belong to carefully built worlds. That attention to texture and symbolism feels Parisian to me. The link with fashion runs just as deep at Italian Maisons such as Versace, Armani and Gucci. A perfume seems to follow the body as closely as the clothes do, completing the look the designer has imagined. I find it sensual, sophisticated and openly sexy. American perfumery has room for very different tastes. Estée Lauder, Clinique and Elizabeth Arden have given us rich fragrances with a broad appeal. Calvin Klein pursued an intense sensuality with Obsession, then proposed CK One as a perfume women and men could share. Tom Ford later put his taste for opulence and provocation into intensely sensual perfumes. The poetry I associate with Japan comes through in Shiseido and in the worlds of Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Kenzo. Some of these perfumes seem almost weightless, with luminous textures and a sensibility that can feel spiritual or a little intellectual. When I think of India, jasmine garlands come to mind, along with warm spices and incense smoke. The sensual and the sacred seem closely connected. Guerlain’s Samsara draws on that imagery through its jasmine and sandalwood. Hermès’s Un Jardin après la Mousson evokes Kerala after the rain, with damp vegetation and the freshness of spices. Russia brings leather to mind, along with Orthodox church incense and the splendour of the Ballets Russes. Ernest Beaux was born in Moscow and trained at Rallet before creating Chanel N°5 in 1921, followed by Cuir de Russie in 1927. The latter evokes the leather of Russian military boots treated with birch tar. Guerlain launched Coque d’Or in 1937 as a tribute to Diaghilev. Its midnight-blue crystal bottle, decorated in gold, looks entirely at home in that world. In Brazil, Natura and O Boticário make colourful, optimistic perfumes with an easy confidence. Their scents are about feeling good and returning to memories that make you smile. The imagery draws on lush nature and sometimes comes close to cliché, though it has a recognisably Brazilian character. ## The Middle East Some Middle Eastern brands owe their visibility to copies of international bestsellers. Very low prices, sometimes showy bottles and the similarities between scents give people plenty to talk about. Incense, rose and oud, though, belong to a much older perfume culture, part of daily routines and the welcome offered to guests. Amouage, founded in Oman in 1983, has long pursued its own approach to making perfume. ## Creating perfume in Dubai Dubai’s perfume studios and training facilities are expanding. Symrise opened Jardin Arabia there in 2023, a centre for fine fragrance creation. In 2025, IFF opened a new 2,000 m² facility with a creative studio and a perfumery academy. Brands can work there with perfumers and development teams, in direct contact with local tastes and ways of wearing fragrance. That contact seems valuable when refining a composition and giving it a chance to find an audience abroad. Nabeel’s The Spirit of Dubai tells stories of its city through the desert, the sea and hospitality. Arabian Oud expresses its Saudi identity through oud; Amouage draws on Omani culture. Mona Kattan has made layering central to Kayali’s approach. The brand was founded in Dubai and shares this way of wearing fragrance with an international audience, linking it to its Middle Eastern heritage. A garment may carry a scent before you have sprayed any perfume. In some Gulf traditions, smoke from bakhoor, a preparation of scented wood heated in an incense burner, is used to perfume clothes and sometimes hair. Scented oils on the skin and eau de parfum can be added in further layers. I like the care taken over the scent of a garment. Oud, a resinous wood of Asian origin, has an important place in these practices. Videos about oud on social media can also make people curious about those rituals. I believe Dubai can earn a lasting place in world perfumery, and I’d like its ambition to give perfumers time to experiment and the freedom to follow their own ideas. The perfumes made there could explore this heritage in very different directions and inspire other perfumers in turn. I wonder which ones we’ll still have on our shelves in twenty years. ## Sources & references - Musées de Grasse: History of perfumery: https://musees.paysdegrasse.fr/node/179 - Chanel: The 1920s and Cuir de Russie: https://www.chanel.com/ch-fr/about-chanel/la-maison-chanel/1920/ - Auparfum: Ernest Beaux: https://auparfum.bynez.com/histoire-de-parfumeurs-ernest-beaux-iconiques-aldehydes,5335 - Guerlain: Samsara: https://www.guerlain.com/fr/fr-fr/p/les-legendaires-samsara---eau-de-parfum-G014316.html - Hermès: Un Jardin après la Mousson press dossier: https://presse.hermes.com/parfum-beaute/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/c8d8382b18ba4afa1d7621af840107cd.pdf - LVMH: 2024 annual report, Coque d’Or and Diaghilev: https://hosting.fluidbook.com/LVMH/rapportannuelinteractif2024/fr/data/texts.pdf - The Business of Fashion: How Dubai Became a Hotbed for Fragrance Dupes: https://businessoffashion-businessoffashion-prod.web.arc-cdn.net/articles/beauty/how-dubai-became-a-hotbed-for-fragrance-dupes/ - Institut du monde arabe: Parfums d’Orient: https://www.imarabe.org/fr/agenda/expositions-musee/parfums-orient - WIPO: Interview with Amouage: https://www.wipo.int/en/web/wipo-magazine/articles/branding-the-fragrances-of-the-orient-an-interview-with-amouage-39754 - Symrise: Opening of Jardin Arabia in 2023: https://www.symrise.com/newsroom/article/symrise-inaugurates-jardin-arabia-its-new-fine-fragrance-creation-hub-in-the-heart-of-dubai/ - IFF: Opening of the Scent Dubai Creative Center in 2025: https://ir.iff.com/news-releases/news-release-details/iff-opens-dubai-creative-center-perfumery-art-studio - Swiss Arabian: Fragrance layering and bakhoor: https://fr.swissarabian.com/de/blogs/news/swiss-arabian-s-expert-guide-to-the-art-of-fragrance-layering - CITES: Document on agarwood-producing trees: https://cites.org/sites/default/files/documents/E-CoP19-62-02.pdf