The name is the final gateway into the fragrance. From Cashmere Show Pony to Lost in Vanillatopia or Pistachio Voodoo Child, the names signal that what you’re about to experience is playful and recognisable, but with a twist.
The Interview: How self-taught perfumer Richard Saint-Ford turned IGGYWOO into a luxury fragrance contender
Sophie Smith
02 February 2026
Having shaped narratives for global fashion brands as both a marketing brand director and fashion director on the publishing side, Richard Saint-Ford developed a sharp understanding of how storytelling can create desire. But after years of building within other people’s frameworks, the pull to create something entirely his own became impossible to ignore.
Launched in 2024, IGGYWOO marks a decisive shift from fashion into fine fragrance, driven by instinct, imagination and a fiercely protected creative freedom. Self-taught as a perfumer and self-funded from the outset, the brand challenges the conventions of the niche fragrance space through unexpected ingredients, playful narratives and a bold visual identity.
In this interview with TheIndustry.beauty, Saint-Ford reflects on the transition from fashion to fragrance, the evolution of IGGYWOO, and the ambition to build a modern brand that values feeling over trends and originality over convention.
Your background is rooted in fashion - what inspired you to venture into fragrance and launch IGGYWOO?
Before IGGYWOO, I spent over 15 years in the fashion industry as a marketing brand director and a fashion director on the publishing side, which really shaped how I think about building brands and telling stories - both visually and emotionally - whether through editorial shoots, brand campaigns, socially, or through styling.
But working within other people’s frameworks, I began to feel ready to move beyond building other brands’ visions, and beyond fashion itself. Fragrance felt like the right space to create something more personal, with a bold and uncompromising visual identity.
I believed I could build something meaningful that would resonate globally, but it had to be on my own terms. I had no idea at the time whether I could actually be a perfumer, but that uncertainty was part of the pull. So I taught myself perfumery and self-funded the venture to maintain full creative freedom. In 2024, IGGYWOO was born.
What key lessons from your career have you carried forward into building your own business?
Fashion taught me that art and commerce aren’t opposites - they’re partners. The brands that endure are the ones where creativity is fearless but commercially aware. One doesn’t work without the other.
I learned to keep a sharp commercial instinct, but never to sand down an idea just to make it more palatable. Fashion moves fast, and you see quickly how a strong, unapologetic vision cuts through, while safer ideas are often forgotten just as quickly.
I’ve carried that into building my own business: protect the idea, keep the edge, and trust that the right audience will feel it.
Can you tell us about your fragrance range and how it has evolved since launch?
IGGYWOO translates to the word ‘imagination’, and when I launched, it was the first time I’d ever put my fragrances into the world. It felt like a real test of whether my nose and creative vision could stand on their own, beyond the visual campaigns and written narratives I’d built around them.
The initial collection was crafted to be intentionally varied; some fragrances leaned more hyper-niche, while others were more accessible. Coming into perfumery without a traditional background, I wasn’t led by trends - I trusted my instinct and what I personally liked.
At the heart of the brand, I take familiar ingredients and gently twist them out of reality by centring one or several ingredients that are rarely, or have never been, used in perfumery - reimagining them in ways that don’t follow the usual path in perfumery, while still keeping a sense of playfulness. This is what customers now recognise as the IGGYWOO signature.
Can you walk us through the scent creation process? How involved are you?
I’m the perfumer from start to finish, and because I’m self-taught, my process is very instinctive. That instinct is a real strength for us as a brand; it allows the fragrances to come from a less expected place. I’m also the creative director, so I conceive, shoot and direct every image and film for IGGYWOO. Everything is built corner to corner. The imagery, films, and the names of the scents shape the first encounter, before anyone even sprays the fragrance. Visually, we have to communicate the emotion and atmosphere of what’s inside the bottle.
Each scent begins with a visual world I want to create, drawn from either lived experience or a fantasy I want to step into. From there, I compose using ingredients that are rarely used - and sometimes not traditionally associated with fine fragrance - then build more familiar notes around them, so the heart of the scent feels unexpected and slightly off-piste, but still wearable.
How do you balance creative freedom with market trends when developing new fragrances?
I prioritise my unique direction and scent language, so we maintain what customers expect from us. Coming from fashion, we are trained to never look sideways at what others were doing because the goal was always to be first, not to follow. I apply that same mindset to IGGYWOO. That distance is intentional - it keeps the work instinctive, original, and ahead of the curve rather than reacting to it.
Where is IGGYWOO currently available, and what are your ambitions for retail expansion?
IGGYWOO is available DTC and through 130+ specialist luxury perfumeries worldwide, but as a young brand, IGGYWOO works best in specialist perfumeries where storytelling matters and teams can properly guide the experience, giving each scent the time and context it deserves.
By the end of 2026, we expect to be in around 200 globally. However, a prime example of us approaching the US differently is our upcoming partnership with Scentbird; this will be a key moment, giving us exposure to over 12 million fragrance-obsessed subscribers, and it provides the opportunity to also fuel our DTC across the US.
Are there any upcoming projects or launches you’re excited to share?
2026 is shaping up to be an important year for us. In March, we’re launching our eighth fragrance; it’s our first vanilla and amber scent, but done the IGGYWOO way.
The UK is a big focus for us in 2026. We saw our early momentum in the US, UAE, and Europe, so naturally we followed that wave first, but now it feels like the right time to begin the UK push. We have some exciting plans and partnerships that will introduce the brand there in a more considered way.
The US is always a key attention market. We have had great traction there from launch with DTC and select retailers, but this summer, we launch with Scentbird and several more niche perfumery stores. It’s an exciting fragrance subscription platform and will help introduce IGGYWOO to a huge 10 million-plus audience overnight, while supporting our DTC growth in the market in a way that still feels aligned with how we want the brand to be experienced.
We’re also expanding into Australia with Libertine Perfumery and parts of Asia later this summer, which is something I’m really looking forward to. IGGYWOO is built on emotion and instinct, so it’s always interesting to see how that translates across different cultures and markets.
How do you feel about the brand’s progress since launch? Any challenges or milestone moments?
The progress has felt well-paced and considered. As a self-taught perfumer, my scent language comes from a more instinctive, less traditional place, and the visual identity and narrative around IGGYWOO are also quite different from much of the niche space. That perspective has helped us build fast-growing favour with consumers, retailers and distribution partners who are looking for something that feels emotionally driven rather than trend-led. Since launching in 2024, the reception has been strong, and one of the biggest milestones has been our high sell-through with retailers, which feels like real validation of both the product and the brand.
Like any young brand, the first 12 months came with extreme challenges - particularly around suppliers and navigating cross-border regulations, as fragrance is a complex category to ship internationally. We also learned some early lessons around partnerships that cost us financially at the time, but ultimately helped us refine how we structure the business going forward.
Looking back, those early challenges strengthened the brand. They forced us to be more precise, more selective, and more confident in how we grow - and that discipline is very much reflected in where we are now.
Looking ahead, what are your biggest ambitions for IGGYWOO?
My ambition is for IGGYWOO to become a modern heritage brand, a destination that side-steps the increasingly homogenised niche fragrance space. I want it to be the less expected, less trend-led, more of a feeling - somewhere people know to come when they want to discover something crafted uniquely.
I didn’t create IGGYWOO as a passive side project. I built it to become a global, future-legacy brand rooted in a real commitment to the craft of fine fragrance. The way we’ve entered the market sets the tone for that ambition. I want the products to reach wide audiences, but scale only matters if we protect the soul of what we’re building. For me, that means protecting IGGYWOO’s perspective and ensuring it isn’t diluted as we expand.
