Elegantes

Elegantes was founded in London in 2018 by Thomas and Dagmar Smit, a couple who came to perfumery from outside the industry with a clear conviction about what niche fragrance should be: the antithesis of branded storytelling and lifestyle marketing. The house's name and founding premise are an argument for fragrance as a discipline of distinction — earned through material quality and compositional skill rather than advertising expenditure. To realise that conviction, the Smits collaborated with perfumer Julien Rasquinet, a Belgian nose trained in Grasse whose résumé includes work for Maison Francis Kurkdjian and other serious niche houses. The resulting compositions are sophisticated and unhurried — fragrances for people who already know what they like and are looking for something with genuine character. Elegantes distributes through a curated selection of London and international niche retailers and maintains a small, carefully considered catalogue. The house represents a specifically British strand of post-2010 niche perfumery: articulate, confident, and resistant to spectacle.