Five years ago you had to hunt down a specialist importer to buy Lattafa. Today it's next to the deodorant in mainstream European drugstores, and the numbers behind that shift are staggering.
The Gulf fragrance industry grew up on oil-based attars and a culture where layering three fragrances is normal. When those houses turned to European-style sprays, they brought two habits with them: heavy ingredient doses and thin margins.
The result is a product European designers can't match at the price — 8-hour longevity at €25 — and a generation of buyers whose first "good" fragrance was an Emirati dupe rather than a French original.
The designer houses' response so far: price increases. We're sure that will work out great for them.