The Pitti Uomo edition that bows Tuesday promises to be an open call for exhibitors, buyers and visitors to kick off 2026 by nailing their dapper outfits from head to toe — and all around.
Fragrances are poised to be an integral part of both the traditional peacocking experience in the fair’s Fortezza da Basso location and inside, as scouting the right scent will be encouraged by the trade show’s organizer Pitti Immagine via a new section dubbed HiBeauty. The space is slated to showcase more than a dozen international niche beauty players and aims to reflect the growing cross-pollination between the category and fashion, especially its intersection in stores.
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The project stems from the organizers’ expertise in the fragrance world, honed by staging 23 editions of the Pitti Fragranze trade show, which is held annually in mid-September at the Stazione Leopolda venue.
The HiBeauty spin-off comes as a natural extension of that three-day dedicated showcase — which last year featured 258 exhibitors and registered a 32 percent increase in visitors versus 2024 — and as a test looking to leverage the growing interest and build further momentum around the niche beauty category.
A study that organizers conducted last year surveying 46 exhibitors at Pitti Fragranze and assessing sales of more than 100 companies hailing from eight European countries with an aggregate turnover of over 1.2 billion euros showed that 26 percent of the brands reported sales growth of between 2 percent and 5 percent compared with the previous year, while 40 percent of companies reported a sales uptick of over 5 percent versus 2024.
More than 60 percent of exhibitors polled said the strongest performance was seen among consumers ages 19 to 35, and 44 percent of the brands highlighted the fast-rising interest of under-18 customers, underscoring great growth potential for niche fragrances and indie skin care labels in the coming years.
No wonder indie beauty players are looking to stretch business opportunities and intercept not only industry experts but also a fashion-savy audience and operators that could amplify their visibility and elevate their positioning.
Here, WWD offers a preview of five brands that will be showcased at HiBeauty.
Raer Scents
Founder: Ted Rohn
Year founded: 2019
Place founded: Berlin
What to know: A perfume enthusiast since childhood, Rohn worked as a graphic designer at the London agency The Partners before stints as art director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, where he worked under Tom Ford and helped launch several fragrances. In 2017, his quest for a bold fragrance that could also be fairly traded and made with natural ingredients encouraged him to create one from scratch and led to the launch of his own brand two years later. Today, the Raer scents are natural, highly concentrated and handcrafted in small batches out of the brand’s Berlin atelier, positioned not far from Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie museum. The city’s Bauhaus tradition and energy influence the creative process, from how Rohn injects a subversive spin to raw materials and rare plants in the Raer formulations to the sleek look of the perfume bottles.
Hero products: The Raer 07 Orris + Cacao fragrance evoking the smell of rain on warm concrete, and the fresh Raer 04 Cedar + Ginger. Latest releases include the limited-edition scent Raer Neroli + Cannabis.
Price range: From 150 euros to 180 euros for special editions.
Key stockists: 10 Corso Como and 50ml in Milan; Dover Street Parfums Market in Paris; The Store x Soho House in Berlin.
Showing at Pitti Uomo because… “We want to reach out to fashion and concept stores as they tend to customers with a similar model set (stylish, urban, appreciate quality and uniqueness) as well as sales staff who can sell an intellectual brand,” said Rohn.
Amoln
Founders: Aice and Jonas Bergholm
Year founded: 2019
Place founded: Malmö, Sweden
What to know: The name and signature light blue shade marking this personal care brand’s products nod to “Moln,” the Swedish term for “cloud.” Both features infuse a sense of tranquility and delicacy into the contemporary Scandinavian design that defines Amoln’s ethically sourced creations. These are the result of handmade processes executed by European artisans, like the popular scented candles handcrafted by a French candle maker that traces back to 1904. Since 2022, Amoln has created the perfume and provided scented candles to the Swedish Royal Palaces, and expanded its assortment with hand creams blending skin-softening shea butter and olive oil with refined scents.
Hero products: The Blue Monochromatic candle collection and now perfumes.
Price range: From $45 for hand creams and $85 for scented candles to $220 for fragrances in the 50-ml. size.
Key stockists: Bergdorf Goodman, Maxfield, Fwrd and The Conservatory in the U.S.; The Conran Shop in Japan; LuisaViaRoma in Italy, and Selfridges in the U.K. starting this month.
Showing at Pitti Uomo because… “We went to Pitti Fraganze last time and it was a great experience for us to meet new partners and showcase our latest launches. The staff at Pitti really loved our concept and invited us to be part of Pitti Uomo in the HiBeauty section,” said Jonas Bergholm.
MarieJeanne
Founder: Georges Maubert
Year founded: 2014
Place founded: Grasse, France
What to know: Part of the fifth generation of the Robertet company that specializes in natural raw materials, Maubert created his brand to pay tribute to his grandmother Marie-Jeanne, who was very attached to Grasse and its region. Maubert looked to celebrate such a heritage in his creations, which are produced in limited series and hinge on natural ingredients and minimalist formulas passed down from generation to generation but delivered with a modern edge in sleek glass bottle and wood packaging.
The founder honed his skills both at home — his family has worked in the industry as farmers, chemists, perfumers and sourcing experts since 1850 — and outside since a young age. For one, at age 14 Maubert did his first internship at the Chanel creation laboratory supervised by the perfumers Jacques Polge and François Demachy. After his studies at Istituto Marangoni and a stint in the family business, he launched MarieJeanne with an inaugural candle collection, and introduced fragrances in 2018. He expanded the range with arty collaborations in the Signature line and mists that could be used as perfumes but also sprayed on laundry or used for interiors.
Hero products: The eaux de parfum Elisa, Iris Pallida and Vétiver Santal, alongside the Bruma Matcha mist.
Price range: Between 60 euros and 180 euros.
Key stockists: Isetan, Tomorrowland and Phaeton in Japan; La Brume in Taipei; Maison de Parfum in Seoul; Parfums Lubner, Highsnobiety, and KaDeWe in Germany; Blos in Belgium; Bloom Perfumery in London; Linda Vuela in Rio in Spain; 50 ml, Bertozzini and Tito Smalti in Italy; the Musée de la Parfumerie in Grasse. In addition to distribution in about 100 stores in 20 countries, the brand has had a store-cum-showroom in Paris since 2018.
Showing at Pitti Uomo because… “It represents a key event for creative brands at the intersection of art, design, and fashion… [We’re] delighted to join alongside a community of creative and forward-thinking brands, to share [our] vision of perfumery with an international audience, strengthen relationships with buyers and partners and explore new markets, while remaining rooted in Grasse,” said the company.
The Things Past
Founder: Ioanna Melidi
Year founded: 2025
Place founded: Athens, Greece
What to know: In Melidi’s vision, each scent is an olfactory study exploring memory, presence and time. The chemical engineer and founder has interwoven technical perfumery expertise with a strong conceptual narrative, rooted in a Proustian inspiration and investigating how memory is not fixed but constantly reshaped through scent. Drawing on her extensive experience in concept-led retail and collaborative art direction, including prior work with The Naxos Apothecary and Korres Natural Products, Melidi’s approach informs all aspects of product development, from formulation to packaging and up to artistic collaborations aimed at translating scent into other media. In the first of such initiatives, she invited visual artist Eva Papamargariti to create a video artwork transforming fragrances into shifting visual landscapes.
Hero products: The debut collection, including fragrances Ex Introvert, Exit Through The Window, Feral Emerge and Sync.
Price range: From 70 euros for the candles to 170 euros for the 100-ml. perfumes.
Showing at Pitti Uomo because… “It offers a unique context where beauty intersects with fashion, culture and design. The HiBeauty section provides the right platform to present fragrance beyond conventional beauty frameworks and connect with a discerning audience,” said Melidi.
Sora Dora
Founder: Quentin Dorado
Year founded: 2022
Place founded: Nantes, France
What to know: The brand is a tribute to the story of Antoine Soradora, born in 1902 in the small town of Loulé, in southern Portugal. Growing up in a religious family, he was faced with the choice of either becoming a priest or leaving his country. He opted for the latter, reaching a small village in southeast France, where he was welcomed by a local family that gave him a modest garden to live in. When during a visit to Grasse he met a jasmine grower, a mutual interest for plants turned into a perfume-making project that Soradora carried on for years and passed down to his daughters. The brand’s fragrances aim to evoke and retrace the Portuguese immigrant’s career, personal journey and passion for nature.
Hero products: Fragrances including Jany, Mandorle, Gladiator, Mallow and the new Lü Bu scent.
Price range: Between 200 euros and 290 euros.
Key stockists: Printemps, Jovoy, Fragrance Passion in France; Luckyscent, ZGO Perfumery in the U.S.
Showing at Pitti Uomo because… “It represents a unique international platform where fashion, lifestyle and beauty intersect and allows us to strengthen our visibility, connect with key industry players and present our universe to a global audience,” said the company.