Byredo

A Swedish house with no in-house perfumer

Ben Gorham founded Byredo in Stockholm in 2006. The name contracts “by redolence”, the English word for a scent that lingers in a room. The founder does not claim the trade of perfumer: he describes what he is looking for and leaves the composing to outside noses, foremost among them Olivia Giacobetti and Jérôme Épinette.

The house’s first fragrances, Gypsy Water, Encens Chembur and Rose Noir, are still in the catalogue. The principle rests on a restricted number of raw materials per formula, which gives each fragrance an immediate reading.

Fragrances named like memories

Each release starts from a place or a moment in the founder’s life, and the bottle stays the same from one fragrance to the next: typographic label, bare glass, no figurative imagery. Gypsy Water, Bal d’Afrique and Blanche carried the brand beyond Sweden.

The house has worked with names from outside perfumery: photographers Inez and Vinoodh in 2016 for the fragrance 1996, Virgil Abloh in 2018, IKEA in 2020, rapper Travis Scott in 2021. Jewelry entered the catalogue in November 2023.

From Manzanita Capital to Puig

Ben Gorham sold a majority stake in Byredo to the London fund Manzanita Capital in 2013, which is also invested in Diptyque, and remained at the head of creation. Puig announced a majority stake acquisition in May 2022, a deal valued at more than one billion euros.

The founder stayed on in creation for the duration of the transition, and left his role in June 2025. The house has since been fully integrated into the Spanish group’s portfolio, alongside L’Artisan Parfumeur and Charlotte Tilbury.