Written by Eveline Nagajeva
Cannes during TFWA is not only a place where perfume brands present what is already available. It is also a place where you can look slightly ahead — into the plans, ideas, and olfactory directions that will shape the coming year.
Images by Eveline Nagajeva
And from what I saw this time, the fragrance industry is definitely not slowing down. There are many new launches planned for 2026 and 2027, along with new brands, new collections, special formats, and plenty of exciting projects still under embargo. Some releases can only be teased for now, but even from those small hints, it already feels like there is a lot worth waiting for.
So let me start with the discoveries I can actually talk about.
Ormonde Jayne is celebrating a very special milestone: the house's 25th anniversary. For the occasion, the brand's founder, Linda Pilkington, presented several beautiful new fragrances that are already available, including Vanille Aube, Zafran Bijou, Musc Rogue, Suede Silhouette, and my personal favorite, Sybarite.
Sarah Baker introduced the final chapter of her Vanilla trilogy, a collection that tells the story of vanilla through three different centuries: 1887, 1987, and 2087. Vanilla in the past, present, and future. The newest fragrance, Year XOXO, imagines what vanilla might become in a future paradise. It is the freshest fragrance in the trilogy, with a bright touch of green apple that gives vanilla a more playful, futuristic, and unexpected direction.
Sergio Momo
Xerjoff presented many plans for the upcoming year, and there is definitely a lot to add to the wishlist.
One of the most exciting directions is the Vibe Collection. Each perfume in this collection comes with a silk foulard designed by Xerjoff and made by the renowned silk weavers of Como. The idea is beautiful, a perfume to wear and a silk accessory to spray, style, and match with your own vibe.
The one I am most excited about is Ubelia, a spicy, creamy gourmand inspired by ube, the violet-colored root vegetable that has been a staple ingredient in Philippine cuisine for centuries. Thanks to its striking color, delicate sweetness, and creamy texture, ube has gained popularity worldwide, especially in the form of ube lattes. As a fragrance idea, it feels unusual, modern, and very tempting.
Another interesting piece of news is Nero70, a warm, powdery, neroli-centered fragrance that was previously available only in Italy and will now become available worldwide.
The Vibe Collection will also expand with alcohol free highly concentrated perfume oils, including the famous Erba Pura, now in oil format as well, alongside Persistique and Reverbia.
Xerjoff is also bringing three fragrances from the Sketchbook Collection, which were previously available in very limited quantities, to a wider audience. The concept is built around ideas once confined to the pages of founder Sergio Momo's sketchbook, now brought to life as perfumes.
The Blank Page Editions return the designs to their creative beginnings, celebrating the sketches and ideas behind the fragrances while highlighting the connection between the three scents: floral p.13, spicy p.18, and leathery p.70.
And something completely new for Xerjoff will arrive for the festive season, a 12-day fragrance Advent calendar with luxurious contents and an exclusive release created especially for it — Primi Venti, a joyful fruity floral gourmand.
Casamorati will also present its first ever Advent calendar, a seven-day luxury experience called Wonderland Carousel. It will include an exclusive new fruity floral fragrance, Melodica.
I really hope Melodica will someday become part of the regular collection. Both the beautiful, shiny champagne colored bottle and the scent itself are definitely something I would love to have.
Ramon Monegal released something completely different from anything in the house's existing collection, both aesthetically and in terms of scent.
The new Katharsis collection was created in collaboration with Spanish contemporary artist Miguel Caravaca. His artwork appears on the bottles, and each painting has its own meaning and story behind it.
I find the whole concept really cool. It feels like a fresh, artistic chapter for Ramon Monegal, bringing perfume and visual art together in a very direct way.
Parfums Dusita presented the second gourmand in its collection: Mocha Absolu, composed around mocha and Thai tea as the next chapter after Tonka Latte.
What I really love is that even when Pissara Umavijani creates gourmands, she never loses the unmistakable Parfums Dusita signature. The result does not feel like a simple sweet perfume, but something more delicate, emotional, and refined.
For this release, Parfums Dusita also created a special experience set, and it is simply everything. Alongside the fragrance, it includes ingredients and a mocha mix to brew your own cup, turning the perfume into a complete sensory experience.
With The House of Oud, I had a beautiful Italian la dolce vita morning thanks to this year's new chapter of the Crazy Collection.
Ciao feels like a Bellini bottled. It is a toast to Italy, to effortless elegance, spontaneous encounters, sunset terraces, clinking glasses, and conversations that turn into memories. With Ciao, THoO transforms one of the simplest and most universal Italian words into a luminous, joyful, and sophisticated olfactory experience.
Amore is a minty gelato of a fragrance. It captures the instinctive, imperfect energy of Italian love, sudden, emotional, and impossible to control. It feels like an Italian summer evening — laughter in a square, a stolen kiss after sunset, music under a window, and memories that stay on the skin.
The house also has more beautiful and impressive releases coming soon, but those still cannot be revealed.
Art Meets Art is a perfume house where fragrance meets music. Each creation is built like a scented interpretation of an iconic song, turning familiar melodies into olfactory moods. The brand also teased its upcoming fragrance The Girl from Ipanema, created with Fabrice Pellegrin and planned for launch in October 2026. This time, the inspiration comes from the legendary bossa nova song by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes — a piece that carries the atmosphere of Rio, sunlight, elegance, rhythm, and effortless sensuality.
And I must say, of everything I tried from the brand, this fragrance became my most favorite.
ānti presented its latest fragrance, Kleopatra, a very beautiful lactonic composition. The house also announced that its fragrances will now be available in smaller formats, which is always good news.
There is also a special edition created for the USA, Plastic Love, a playful bubble gum floral interpretation.
ānti also teased an upcoming release that completely stole my heart — and not only mine. I am now impatiently waiting for it.
Agatho Parfum, an Italian house inspired by ancient Pompeii, Naples, Greek mythology, and Mediterranean culture, presented two new releases.
Portamarina, from the Pompei Collection, transports you to a serene morning in ancient Pompeii, with citrus, aromatic herbs, sea air, and a soft powdery feeling.
Parthenope is dedicated to the mythological soul of Naples and named after the siren whose legend is deeply connected with the city.
Agatho Parfum will also be available in smaller bottle sizes.
D'Orsay unveiled its latest addition to the Extraits collection, Vanilla Affair. Created by perfumer Nathalie Lorson, it explores the darker, more sensual facets of vanilla, making it a particularly fitting companion for the cozy, colder days ahead.
And there's something wonderfully delicate on the horizon from D'Orsay, too.
As a fan of Élisire and its founder, the artist Franck Salzwedel, I was very happy to meet him again and discover the house's upcoming release.
I cannot fully reveal the new fragrance yet, but I can say that it comes in a beautiful blue bottle, and even the shade of blue was chosen with great precision. Franck shared with me he was given several variations of blue, but as an artist, he needed the exact shade. As perfume lovers, we may not always pay attention to such details, but for the artist behind the creation, they mean a lot. It shows the real care and love that go into these fragrances, down to the smallest details.
I was once again impressed by the exquisite, unmistakably French character of Élisire's compositions and after returning home, I immediately ordered Papaguena, with its bright, sunny, realistic mandarin facets, to preserve my beautiful memories of the French Riviera.
Meo Fusciuni released his first gourmand, but of course, in his own signature style, Amara Vita, an amazing dark and dramatic chocolate fragrance.
He also introduced a new conceptual project created with Federica Castellani, Istituto dell'Odore. The name means "Institute of Smell," and the concept feels more like an archive of olfactory memories than a traditional perfume brand.
Each fragrance is built around a raw material or memory, turning scent into a way to preserve a moment, a place, or an emotion.
There were also several new perfume houses presented in Cannes, and some of them became particularly memorable discoveries.
Nuit Vagabonde is a new house from the South of France, launched this June and built around the idea of perfume as cinematic memory.
Its first collection, Nocturne Memory, unfolds like a nocturnal story in several acts, exploring leather, skin, intimacy, desire, and the traces left behind after the night fades.
The collection tells the intimate story of two strangers meeting one night in a jazz club, and each fragrance feels like a scene from that encounter.
I was incredibly excited to discover Ettore Vico, a new Italian brand where fragrance meets radical design, founded by Alessandro Castagno, known for his work with Astrophil & Stella.
Inspired by the forms, atmospheres, and visual language of the second half of the twentieth century, the house treats perfume as a design object, structured, sculptural, and expressive.
Its idea of "future memory" turns the past not into nostalgia, but into material for a contemporary olfactory vision.
And it absolutely lived up to my expectations. The fragrances are approachable and wearable, yet so beautiful and full of character. They left me counting down the days until November, when the brand officially launches.
Posh is a stylish new Italian brand with the Milanese lifestyle at the heart of its concept.
To me, these fragrances feel perfect for those who are young at heart, love enjoying life to the fullest, keep their thoughts light, and don't need too much drama or complication.
They feel made for people who could leave everything behind, jump on a motorcycle, and simply set off on an adventure.
One of the most interesting encounters for me was Van Dang, an American fragrance house run by a couple with a fascinating background.
Their artisanal compositions felt completely different from everything else I tried in Cannes — far from conventional perfume structures and very personal in character.
I fell in love with Savannah, a fragrance where white florals intertwine beautifully with leather.
A visit to Maison Guirec, where many brands were gathered together, introduced me to several houses I had heard about but had not tried before.
One of them was Photogenics+ Co, a house founded by a former fashion model, with scents inspired by the psychoactive characteristics of plants and herbs.
I love how thoughtfully each size has been designed, especially the travel-size roll-on. Given the founder's background in modeling, I find it particularly clever that it was designed to be carried in a bag and could even serve as a means of self-defense.
IDMAN is a fragrance house from the United Arab Emirates, but I would say its compositions feel very much suited to European tastes — and they are beautiful.
The brand is built around the idea of scent as emotional self-expression. I really enjoyed the fragrances, and I was also pleasantly surprised by the perfume balm format. I absolutely love this alternative way of wearing scent.
Another beautiful encounter was Les Archives. I was completely charmed.
It is a French perfume house built around the idea of fragrance as memory. Each creation feels like a preserved fragment of life — a trace left on skin, somewhere between intimacy, emotion, and an olfactory journal.
I still remember the experience of No I.D. on my wrist: rice at first, then suddenly a cloud of white musk, followed by the warm, creamy sweetness of condensed milk. What a beautiful evolution on the skin.
Tobba was another house I had been eagerly looking forward to discovering.
Founded in Hong Kong by Jasper Li and Adrian Yu, this intriguing perfume house brings together Far Eastern sensibility and contemporary European perfumery.
They presented their new release, Musc Albedo, a distinctive interpretation of the clean, aldehydic musk profile.
And their recent tuberose creation, Asura? Simply wow.
We also had a very intriguing experience with Thomas De Monaco, a blind test of the brand's upcoming release. Even the name is still a secret, but I have a strong feeling it will be a very successful one. It is expected to see the light in spring 2027, and I am already looking forward to it.
Looking back at everything I discovered in Cannes, one thing is clear: the niche fragrance industry continues to grow, not only through new releases and emerging brands, but also through fresh ideas, creative collaborations, and new ways of experiencing perfume.
I was particularly happy to see how much attention brands are paying to the whole experience surrounding a fragrance, from bottle design and storytelling to unusual formats and collaborations with artists. And while gourmands are clearly not going anywhere, it was interesting to discover how differently perfumers are approaching this popular category.