Amouage’s business is on fire.
The Omani fragrance house’s global estimated retail sales surged 74 percent in the first half of 2026 to about $360 million. Sales were boosted by increased global relevance as the brand’s portfolio continued elevating, clients worldwide leaning into higher scent concentrations and the right value proposition, according to Marco Parsiegla, chief executive officer of Amouage.
Growth was widespread. The brand’s Exceptional Extraits generated more than 25 percent of sales and rose more than 80 percent, while sales from the Essence Collection, from a double-infusion process, were up more than 260 percent. Geographically, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and Americas’ sales each gained by at least by 90 percent.
Parsiegla, who stepped into the CEO role in 2019, believes passion to be the biggest driver spurring Amouage’s five-fold growth over five years, followed by a winning team.
“We are big dreamers,” he said. “We have a very clear goal where we want to be — the number-one high perfumery house.”
Here, Parsiegla shares his strategy.
WWD: What is Amouage’s retail strategy?
Marco Parsiegla: The next phase you will be seeing is boutiques in luxury destinations in Europe and in Asia. London is on the map, and Singapore is coming. The boutiques allow us to portray what we are about. They allow our clients to immerse and understand, and have a halo. E-commerce [and brick-and-mortar] go hand-in-hand. Digital for us is just another expression of the same experience. It becomes an increasingly important point of entry for us at Amouage.
Amouage.com more than doubled [sales] in the first half. For many of our clients, it’s actually the first encounter right now to see [the brand]. So we need to make sure we get it right. The testing field for us there is clearly the U.S. market, which is the most demanding one, but it’s also our most successful in [e-commerce].
Amouage opens in Beverly Hills.
Courtesy of Amouage
WWD: Are there white spaces in the brand’s portfolio?
M.P.: We have a wide portfolio rooted in what we believe our expertise is: scent. We need to be very clear where we are the experts and can contribute. There are two elements linked to that. The first one is linked to where our clients physically are. We know they love traveling. Through our collaboration and partnership with the Mandarin Oriental, we can allow clients there to immerse themselves into an olfactive territory, which is uniquely curated.
On the other side, it’s the rituals. The current portfolio already has attars, the pure oils that are part of a ritual. We have seen great success and tested a little bit the Guidance body line and are coming forward with a new luxury body line, which is related to six Amouage creations.
Geographically, we are in 100 markets. The big focus will be key destinations in Europe as well as in Asia. We made very good progress in the U.S., where we have seen wonderful results from our boutique in SoHo, which had an impact on much more than just Manhattan. We [want to] replicate that on the West Coast. China is a big focus.
WWD: What are other opportunities for Amouage today?
M.P.: The single biggest opportunity is to make sure we’re bringing some magic back to the industry — something which is unique. So we need to be sure we strengthen us being a platform for creative expression and for experimentation in high perfumery. We want to push what’s possible. We have done it with Essences and Extraits. If you look at small products like Oud Zuhal, where we literally immerse oud chips in the oil and age that for six months, that’s important. The second thing is we want to be a catalyst for dialogue between our clients, but also with partners. That’s big and helps a lot. We want to redefine luxury a little bit, making sure we continue on our path — we are very open, curated. We want to drive curiosity, definitely to make sure we have the right ethics and offer the right value.
WWD: How is L’Oréal’s minority investment in Amouage being used?
M.P.: It has been and it still is a fantastic partnership for us to support the next stage of Amouage’s development. What it helped us with was scaling up. We entered into the partnership when we started rolling out our monobrand boutiques, and it has been a key enabler financially to do that. What was very important from the beginning is the alignment; we had a very clear alignment on what Amouage is and what Amouage is not. What’s the identity of the house, the creative direction and how important the freedom is for the house to operate in the same way it had operated. We are both [holding] to those agreements, and they help us moving forward. It’s mainly and firmly a financial investment…but of course, there are other elements, like getting some more visibility in terms of ingredient developments. L’Oréal is the best partner you can have to understand regulatory aspects, [for instance]. Capacity is a big question we are having right now, not that we would change anything in our craftsmen’s approach, but it’s good to understand what are technologies which could be used in the production cycle, always making sure that remains in Oman.
WWD: What are other challenges for Amouage?
M.P.: Two are basically top of mind. The first one is related to the clients’ demand for our creations, so it’s making sure we are developing the capabilities as well as the capacity to be able to ideally fulfill demand. That’s quite an undertaking. To have a craftswoman or craftsman, it takes three to five years to immerse and learn about it. The second one is in securing a very stable supply chain — that has been on our top of the list for the last couple of months, and that requires agility, a strength in systems and very strong partnerships. I’m happy we have at the moment 96 percent fulfillment rate. This is best in the industry, but it comes with a lot of effort and work. In the stage the world is in, you always need to be prepared [in case] there’s some other disruption potentially coming.
WWD: How would you describe your leadership style?
M.P.: It’s evolving over time. I’m an engineer from my education, so I still believe strongly in discipline, in precision and in very high standards — particularly if we talk about luxury. But on the other side, I learned you cannot attain or sustain those standards through control alone. My leadership is much more about providing a very clear direction and making sure that there’s a high degree of autonomy for people to feel empowered and enabled to do so. But people need to understand that to achieve those standards, they need to also understand what standards we want to operate. It’s very important. I love diversity. We are a small company with about 40 different nationalities among our 317 employees. That’s what you need to have the most diverse thought process and ideas. What is important in the way I lead is to make sure that great ideas can actually come from any place in the organization. More often, they come from places you would not expect. Those are ideas we then need to nurture, scale and make exciting. I tend to think in longer cycles…definitely beyond the quarterly streets, which we don’t have, to basically thinking in more than three- and five-year terms to really build the future.
WWD: Where else do you glean inspirations?
M.P: It’s great to get them internally, but it is very important for me personally to get them externally, as well. In my next life I want to be an architect. Architecture is great. I get a lot of inspiration from that, because you’re creating emotions without words. You very structurally create something, which is becoming very emotional, and there’s a lot there. Hospitality is another great one. What makes you like a hotel? I love traveling, but I also take it as a source of inspiration. I like the car industry — there are some good ideas about modularization of operations. All our products are serialized. We actually took that inspiration from the pharma industry. Nobody had done it in perfumery before. It’s different fields, different environments, different functions, different areas that really drive inspiration back to me.
WWD: What do you do to relax?
M.P.: To relax I’m in a lucky place, because Oman is wonderful. I can pack up my car and go to the mountains or I go to the desert. It’s a gift in that sense to be located here. I have my weekly recharge routine, which includes frankincense massage most of the weeks.