Max Mara's debut fragrance, Le Parfum, launches under a long-term Shiseido licence
The woody scent, priced from £104 for 50ml, is the first fruit of a licence Shiseido signed with the Italian house in July 2024.
Max Mara has launched its first fragrance, Le Parfum, under a long-term licence that hands its scent business to Shiseido. The bottle is glass with a lacquered belt at its centre, and prices start from £104 for 50ml at gb.maxmara.com. The scent is built around sandalwood and cedarwood, wrapped in tuberose absolute and finished with vanilla.
Shiseido and Max Mara signed the licence in July 2024, giving the Japanese group the right to develop, produce, market and distribute fragrances under the Max Mara name. Shiseido is a Japanese multinational known for skincare, makeup and fragrance, and the deal adds an Italian fashion house to a stable that already includes Narciso Rodriguez and Issey Miyake.
Yael Tuil, President Global Fragrances at Shiseido, called Le Parfum a defining milestone in the partnership, saying it is rooted in a shared commitment to quality, craftsmanship and innovation and captures the distinctive values of the house through a new olfactory and design expression.
A company statement pointed to fragrance as one of the fastest growing categories in global prestige beauty, with demand expanding across generations as consumers treat scent as a form of self-expression.
What else is in Shiseido's fragrance stable
Max Mara joins a portfolio that already runs to Zadig et Voltaire, Serge Lutens, Tory Burch and Shiseido's own-brand lines, alongside the Narciso Rodriguez and Issey Miyake licences named above.
The group is prioritising Europe, North America and Asia Pacific for Le Parfum in 2026, then turning to China, Japan and Latin America in 2027. Shiseido has said it wants to build out the Max Mara franchise further and use it to strengthen its wider fragrance business.
The launch lands soon after Shiseido reported a sharp jump in profit, a turnaround we covered in Shiseido profit surges 90% as turnaround gains traction, where improved performance in the Americas ran alongside a standout fragrance division. A newly licensed house arriving now suggests the group is leaning further into scent as the business that is working.
Max Mara's own history with fragrance
Max Mara was founded in 1951 by Achille Maramotti in Italy and now runs more than 2,000 stores worldwide. It is not new to scent: the house introduced its first fragrance, Max Mara for women, in 2004, built on ginger, citruses and orchid, and later added Kashmina Touch, a woods and musks composition.
Le Parfum leans more floral and spicy than either of those, and is the first to arrive under Shiseido's stewardship rather than a previous licensing arrangement.
Fragrance has been the growth story across prestige beauty more broadly, a trend we tracked in Fragrance drives US prestige beauty past $17 billion in first half, and it is the same category Shiseido is now betting a fashion house's name on.
Neither company has said what Le Parfum is expected to contribute financially, and Shiseido has not disclosed terms of the licence beyond its scope and duration.
Sources
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