This is the third in our Global Beauty Hotspots series, unpacking the regional beauty market around the world, including Latin America, Australia, Scandinavia, Africa and East Asia. This article is part of our Vogue Business membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to our weekly Beauty Edit newsletter, which contains Member-only reporting and analysis, the Beauty Trend Tracker and Leadership Advice, sign up for Vogue Business membership here.
Niche perfume brands in Scandinavia are injecting new energy into the market with fashion week tie-ins and design-led partnerships that aim to create an “aesthetic universe”. The goal is to capture the attention of international retailers and investors, and maybe even follow the success of Stockholm brand Byredo, which was sold to Puig last year in a billion-euro deal.
“Byredo has such specific scent profiles: they’re distinct and different and unique. They’ve stuck with creating more niche fragrances, which is why they stand out in the market… and they’re still quite big here [in Sweden] too,” says Jennifer Carlsson, beauty brand consultant and founder of market research platform Mintoiro.
That’s representative of the broader Scandi market of niche fragrance brands, including Frama, Unifrom, Fischersund, Stora Skuggan and Maya Njie, according to Mintoiro’s research. These brands are finding success locally and abroad, says Carlsson, by leaning into the Scandi aesthetic and culture while using local ingredients as well as sleek and minimal packaging. They’re focused on world-building, and look to fashion as an entry point to the customers they’re targeting.
As customers gravitate toward unconventional scent portfolios and minimalist packaging in the spirit of the “quiet luxury” aesthetic — which has extended all the way to fragrance — these brands are at an advantage. But, expanding abroad will require tactful partnerships and logistics management.
“My TikTok videos that do the best [are the ones for] people who don’t want to smell like flowers,” says fragrance content creator LC James, who has over 60,000 followers on TikTok. She says TikTok’s microtrends have carried over into fragrance, with people looking for scents that match an aesthetic like “swamp witch” and being more experimental with scents, such as using peppercorns. Swedish brand Stora Skuggan’s ‘Moonmilk’ fragrance, for example, blends sandalwood with black tea, cardamom and lime.
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The global fragrance market was worth $57 billion in 2022, according to Euromonitor International. Of that, the Nordic fragrance market — which includes Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden — was worth $529.7 million in 2022 and is set to hit an estimated $557 million this year, Euromonitor predicts. By county, Denmark leads with a market worth $205.5 million in 2022; Sweden follows closely behind at $193.4 million.
The untapped fashion opportunity
Fashion and fragrance are intertwined for Scandinavian brands, who see the industry as a key partner in harnessing their own design-inspired aesthetics.
After meeting in a queue during Copenhagen Fashion Week in 2022, Danish designer Heliot Emil and Haisam Mohammed, founder of the Stockholmed-based fragrance brand Unifrom, began speaking about their love of fragrances and design. The meeting led to Unifrom creating a unique scent, Dawn 2.0, for the designer’s Spring/Summer 2023 show during Paris Fashion Week. The aim, Mohammed says, was to use scents to elevate the runway experience and help the brand communicate their collections through smell.
“Designers spend so many months planning and designing but the show is over in a couple of minutes and the guests are leaving with just the impression from [watching the show],” he says. “I wanted to enhance the designer’s story and help people understand the story of the runway better.”
Unifrom, which was launched in 2020 and is backed by Frame Denim co-founder Erik Torstensson, is now stocked in luxury retailers including Dover Street Market, Luisaviaroma and Browns. In seven months the brand has nearly doubled its stockists, from 14 to 26. Sales are nearing $1 million, the brand says.
Long term, Unifrom plans to collaborate with leading independent designers to help them branch into the fragrance market. Other brands have carved similar partnerships: Francesco Ragazzi, founder of Palm Angels, collaborated with Swedish perfume house 19–69 on three scents inspired by Southern California beaches and deserts. It’s not only an opportunity for fashion brands to showcase their collections, but fragrance brands are finding innovative ways to bring their product to new audiences through these fashion partnerships. Ultimately, fans of the designer are able to purchase the limited-edition fragrance created as part of the collaboration. Unifrom’s fragrances range from £59 for a 10ml perfume oil to £95 for a Frankincense solid perfume case.
The goal with cross-industry collaborations is not to create hype, says Johan Chen, CEO of Copenhagen-based multidisciplinary design brand Frama, which sells fragrances among other categories. “It’s not about presenting something new to the world, it’s more about people from different parts of the world coming together. It’s mostly about the community.” However, there is also a business goal, Chen acknowledges: audience acquisition and connecting with buyers. Chen attends Paris Fashion Week to meet international retailers.
Building a brand world
Design and craftsmanship are also key to Scandinavian brands’ identities, and many design houses have delved into the world of fragrance.
Frama leans heavily on its fashion and design partnerships to help reach new audiences. The company was launched in 2012 by Niels Strøyer Christophersen as a design studio, creating furniture and homewares; four years later it introduced the fragrance category. It launched its first genderless fragrance, housed in a glass bottle in 2016; something Chen says was new in the fragrance market at the time. Prices range from €15 for a 2.5ml tester to €110 for a 50ml bottle. Over the last five years, sales have grown on average 30 per cent.
Last year, Frama collaborated with niche Japanese designer Hender Scheme to create a pair of leather utilitarian slides as well as fragrances, including a natural room diffuser that distributes scent via balls of Korean soil. The collaboration strategy can help perfume brands broaden their reach, create buzz and acquire new customers, especially if it comes with a co-sign from a well-known designer.
This season, during Copenhagen Fashion Week, Frama is collaborating with German vintage fashion collectors Sissi Pohle and Pat Scherzer, founders of Out of Use Berlin. Frama will offer up its showroom in Copenhagen so that the collectors can recreate a vintage market and exhibit their collection of vintage clothes, Chen says.
Brands, within Scandinavia and beyond, are creating their own fragrance universe in a bid to help boost brand identity and expand into new categories, says content creator LC James. “We have seen creative directors and brand directors who are not strictly industry professionals or perfumers, but are more just polymaths,” she says, which are not typical roles in the fragrance industry and highlights the desire to take a perfume brand into new territories.
“There seems to be this notion of building a brand that is not simply a niche fragrance but an aesthetic universe,” LC James adds. The consumer who wears [Byredo’s] Mojave Ghost, for example, needs the Byredo eyeshadow palette and Byredo sunglasses and bag. It’s another way of communicating what is perhaps the most difficult thing to see when you can’t experience it, which is fragrance. Marketing fragrances globally when you can’t smell it, I think necessitates the building of some kind of visual universe.”
Challenges abroad
Once brands have conquered the local market, the goal is to take their products overseas. However, breaking into new territories has been challenging for Oslo-based fragrance brand Son Venïn. Founder Dag Laska launched the brand in 2016.
“I’m working with agencies in the UK and France at the moment, which is a bit new to me,” he says. “My model has always been [working with select wholesale partners] and selling direct in certain markets. But, it’s always hard, we’re a small brand and I don’t have the cash to promote the business too much.” Partnering with agencies was the right strategic decision, he admits, as they have been able to connect him with the appropriate retailers and buyers. “It’s a bit old school but I believe the retail market is one of the best places for getting promotion… Once you get into the right retailers, the right people will check out [the brand] and so will other retailers.” The company aims to hit €300,000 in revenues this year.
Similar to beauty brands in Latin America and Australia, regulation continues to be a pain point for emerging brands seeking to expand abroad. For Isabelle Lewenhaupt, founder of the Swedish fragrance brand Björk and Berries, this is something her team is constantly navigating. “Different countries have varying regulations for cosmetics and fragrances,” she says. “Ensuring compliance with international regulatory requirements can be complex and time-consuming.” The competitive nature of the global perfume market means they have to work fast to overcome these setbacks and ensure that products are tailored to each market. Björk and Berries is stocked at luxury department stores Liberty in London, Le Bon Marche and La Samaritaine in Paris, as well as Saks Fifth Avenue’s e-commerce site.
What works well in Sweden is not guaranteed to be a success in the US. “The global perfume market is highly competitive, with established international brands dominating. Also fragrance preferences can vary significantly across cultures and regions, and we need to adapt marketing and product offerings to resonate with other global markets,” says Lewenhaupt. Björk and Berries’ key markets include France, Germany, Italy, UK, Sweden and the US. Other barriers to the international market include establishing international distribution channels and managing logistics, shipping costs, customs regulations, and import/export restrictions.
Scandi brands like Björk and Berries, which draws inspiration from brands such as Jacquemus and Swedish furniture and lifestyle brand Svenskt Tenn, are following in the footsteps of their predecessors as global attitudes towards perfume continue to shift. “We see a growing interest in unique and niche fragrances that stand out from mass-produced scents,” says Lewenhaupt. “Local perfume brands like ours have the opportunity to create distinctive, artisanal fragrances that cater to specific tastes and preferences based on the uniqueness of their region’s culture and history.”
The next step is for brands in the region to strengthen their relationship with international retailers and forge new, and smart, partnerships in neighbouring industries.
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