Aíam: MANAMI and Ryosuke Fujii’s Journey from Skincare to Fragrance

I want to be someone who can bring small moments of happiness into my customers’ lives.
MANAMI (Manami Kakehashi)

Aíam is a Japanese beauty brand launched in 2020 by Ryosuke Fujii and creative director MANAMI (Manami Kakehashi). Known for its round silver caps and numbered “chapter” perfumes, its first products were actually skincare.

“I am myself.” Behind these words are MANAMI’s experiences of gaining support through social media while also feeling how close at hand comparisons with others can be. From time spent caring for the skin to time spent wearing fragrance, Aíam’s journey reveals a question: how can we make room in everyday life for small pleasures that are for ourselves?

Key Information
The Founders and the Brand’s Origins
The Brand’s Commitments
References

Key Information

Founded: 2020 (Aiam Co., Ltd. established September 2; brand launched October 14)
Founders: Ryosuke Fujii and MANAMI (Manami Kakehashi)
Roles at founding: Ryosuke Fujii was president and CEO; MANAMI was responsible for the brand’s creative direction
Perfume range introduced: 2021
Country of origin: Japan
Official website: Aíam

The Founders and the Brand’s Origins

Learning to See Each Individual in Her Retail Years

MANAMI was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1990. After graduating from high school, she worked in clothing retail in Hiroshima, later moving to Tokyo and working on the shop floor at rienda. There, she learned to look not just at the clothes, but at the people choosing them.

Focus on making customers happy rather than on sales.
MANAMI, words she learned from the manager of the Ikebukuro store

After serving a customer, she would record their characteristics, their conversation, the clothes they already owned, and their interests in a notebook, then reread it at the end of the day. It was a habit aimed at remembering the person’s life, beyond simply recording what they had bought.

In 2016, she launched eimy istoire with Fujii and became its creative director. From sales assistant, she moved to the side of creating a brand’s world and its products. Even as she later became involved in planning and revisions for several brands, including Aíam, she continued to place her relationship with customers at the center of her work.

Reconsidering Social-Media Comparisons and Launching Skincare in 2020

Aíam began with a question MANAMI asked as she approached her thirties: “What is essential beauty?” Social media is a place to connect with many people and share one’s expression. At the same time, it is a place to compare oneself with others and be compared by others. Having experienced both sides as a public communicator herself, she put self-acceptance at the heart of her new brand.

Fujii established Aiam Co., Ltd. on September 2, 2020, serving as president and CEO. MANAMI took responsibility for overall direction, and two and a half years were spent developing the initial five skincare products. On October 14 that year, advance sales began for the Feery series, centered on a booster lotion and beauty cream.

The brand did not begin as a perfume specialist. First, it translated the idea of self-acceptance into everyday skincare. This sequence matters in understanding its perfumes today, too. Fragrance was a form of expression added to daily life afterward.

The First Store in 2021: Expanding into Perfume and Everyday Scents

The first store opened in Lumine Est Shinjuku on September 9, 2021. Alongside the existing skincare, about fifty new SKUs, or product units distinguishing types and specifications, were added, including fragrance, bath and body care, candles, and diffusers. This new group of products was the chapter series.

Fragrance could be incorporated not only into what one wore on the skin, but also into bathing, body care, and time spent in a room. The store interior likewise drew inspiration from nature, including light, stone, water, and geological strata, opting for gentle colors and a warm space. The expansion created both products and a place to experience them.

The brand, which began online, expanded its stores where people could experience scent directly. In 2023, combined sales at its four directly operated stores in Shinjuku, Nagoya, Osaka, and Ikebukuro were running at 3.5 times the previous year’s level. In March 2025, it also opened in Isetan Shinjuku’s fragrance section, broadening its fragrance-centered activities.

2025: Opening the First Overseas Store in Shanghai

We will expand overseas as early as this year.
Ryosuke Fujii, March 2025

Those words led to the opening in Shanghai on November 9 of the same year. The first directly operated overseas store opened in Jing’an Kerry Centre. Its mint-colored space with silver accents was also featured by Shanghai’s English-language media outlet City News Service as a calm, simple design.

Spheres reminiscent of the chapter caps are arranged on the ceiling. Even as it takes fragrances born in Japan overseas, the brand enlarges the small form of its bottles into a retail space. Leaving the same visual cue in both products and places is a characteristic Aíam choice.

The Brand’s Commitments

The Name chapter: Marking a Moment in Life

The word chapter refers to a section of a book or film. Aíam identifies its fragrances by numbers, intending to mark each moment of a person’s life together with scent, as though capturing a scene from that life.

The fragrances follow a shared naming format, such as “chapter65” and “chapter70.” What unites the series is not a shared flower or place as its subject, but the idea of connecting scenes from life with fragrance. Within that framework, combinations of flowers, musk, wood, fruit, and other elements differ from one creation to another.

Flowers and Musk in chapter65, Fruit and a Dry Finish in chapter37

In chapter65, a fragrance representative of Aíam, orange flower and violet are layered with a soft, powder-like character and the warmth of musk. The published composition also includes lemon, bergamot, and savon, a soap note, followed by flowers and then sandalwood and amber.

This creation seeks to portray not only the radiance of flowers, but also a softness that retains an innocent quality, together with a warmth that seems to stay close. The design combines clean-smelling elements, floral expression, and the lingering notes of wood and musk, embodying the brand’s description of 65.

Chapter37, meanwhile, was launched on September 4, 2026, as the eleventh fragrance in the series. It layers powdery flowers of rose, iris, and violet over the sweetness of ripe fruit centered on mandarin, then moves into a dry lingering impression of patchouli, vetiver, and musk. The brand calls it a “floral chypre,” with flowers layered over a composed base of patchouli, oakmoss, and other notes.

Both 65 and 37 have floral and powdery qualities, but they portray them differently. While 65 emphasizes the warmth of musk, 37 depicts a transition from fruity sweetness to a dry finish. Adding a new chapter becomes a way to create a different expression, rather than repeat an existing fragrance.

Enjoying the Same Fragrance on Skin and in a Room

Chapter65 is available not only as perfume, but also as a candle. In candle form, the scent of flowers and musk is paired with a flickering flame to create a moment spent in a room. The same 65 can be enjoyed either on the skin or diffused through a space.

Chapter is a series that spans perfume, body and hair care, and room fragrance. Adding more scents and making the same scent available in another form: these two directions develop side by side, extending the idea of bringing scent to life’s scenes into several parts of everyday living.

Spherical Caps and Scent Strips That Differ by Fragrance

The chapter65 bottle is a low cylinder of clear glass wrapped in a white label. The label displays chapter, the number, and the brand name, topped by a mirrored silver spherical cap. Against the bottle’s simple form, the round cap becomes a clear identifying feature.

The mouillettes (in Japanese), or scent-testing strips, used to try fragrances in stores also carry a different illustration for each scent. While a shared bottle brings the series together, each fragrance has its own appearance on paper. The fragrances are distinguished not just by numbers, but visually as well.

Caring for one’s skin, choosing a fragrance, and arranging time spent in a room. Aíam’s “I am myself” exists alongside these everyday acts. Approaching chapter with an understanding of the brand’s background leaves a question beyond the names of its scents: what kind of time would you like to add to your own life?