Lattafa

History

The house began in Dubai as a family business of the Sheikh family, now in its third generation. The dates shift depending on the source — its own website says 1980, the trade press says the late eighties, and the launch of the brand under this name is usually dated to 1992 — so the range is given here rather than a choice made. What is not in dispute is what came next: for decades it was a regional Gulf perfumer, and from 2020 it exploded beyond it. Ase, Khamrah, Yara and Fakhar went from social media to the world, and the house went from selling in Gulf shops to being on Amazon across half the planet. It now also manufactures under the Maison Alhambra label.

Iconic models

• Khamrah

  The one that took it out of the Gulf. Cinnamon, date and benzoin; the Arabic perfume more non-Arabs have smelled than any other.

• Yara

  Sweet and milky, of heliotrope and sandalwood. The house's best seller among women and the one everyone else copies.

• Asad

  The house's answer to the designer ambers, with pineapple and bergamot on top.

• Fakhar

  An aromatic masculine fougère; usually cited as the house's reading of Dior's Sauvage.