“as if perfumes were our guests.”
— Dhaher bin Dhaher
Bringing the idea of a room for welcoming guests into a perfume shop: Dubai’s Villa515 began as a place not only to choose perfume, but also to discover ingredients, create scents, and encounter expressions from different cultures.
Its origins involve a mother and sister who blended fragrances at home, a founder seeking a home for his own brand, and collaboration with an Italian perfumer. Rather than reducing Middle Eastern perfume culture to a single material, the shop opened a window from within that culture onto niche perfumery around the world.
Essential Information
- Name: Villa 515
- Opened: 2013
- Founders: Dhaher Bin Dhaher and Alessandro Gualtieri
- Place of origin: Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE
- Official website: Villa 515
Villa515 is a multibrand perfume retailer, with a different role from Dhaher’s own fragrance brand, Tola Perfumery. Its current official information lists a location on Jumeirah Beach Road in Jumeirah 3 and Perfumery by Villa 515 at Gate Avenue in DIFC.
The Founders and the Origins of the Shop
From Fragrance Making at Home to a Brand of His Own
Dhaher was born and raised in Dubai. Rather than spending his entire career in perfumery, he is a businessman who has also worked in his family’s businesses and in government-related roles. His earliest connection to scent came from his mother, who blended her own perfumed oils and bukhoor. Bukhoor is incense made by heating scented wood chips or other materials to perfume homes and clothing.
During a trip to London with his mother and eldest sister, a conversation about the memories and emotions evoked by scent inspired Tola. He wanted to share the skills and stories of the home with the wider world. In 2022, Dhaher described that starting point in these words:
“We were ready to move beyond the family sphere and address the whole world.”
— Dhaher bin Dhaher
He dates Tola’s foundation to 2010. Over roughly the next three years, he used opportunities during business trips to visit niche perfume shops and meet ingredient producers, distributors, Gualtieri, and Gérald Ghislain of Histoires de Parfums, among others. By 2013, the first collection had taken shape. The brand’s foundation and the shop’s opening were separate events.
A Home for Perfume, Conceived with Gualtieri
Villa515 opened in Jumeirah in 2013. The immediate reason for creating the shop was the lack of a suitable home for Tola. Gualtieri, who developed the concept with Dhaher, is the perfumer behind Nasomatto and Orto Parisi.
Their idea was to create a meeting place for Arab and Italian cultures. The chairs arranged around the space drew on the idea of the majlis, a room for receiving guests. The opening quotation uses hospitality as a metaphor: perfume itself is welcomed into that room.
Lilian Driessen designed the original interior. Her installation of chairs mounted on the walls reflected the rows of chairs against the walls that she had seen in Dubai homes. What is striking is that the shop gave physical form to the act of welcoming, rather than merely providing shelves on which to line up perfumes.
Expansion to Abu Dhabi and Renovation of the Villa
In 2016, a shop opened at The Galleria on Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi. When Dhaher spoke in 2022 of three shops in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, he was describing the business at that time.
Meanwhile, the Jumeirah villa evolved into a place that extended beyond perfume. NON Architects completed its renovation in 2023. The 1980s villa was remodeled to add a restaurant and spaces for work, dining, events, and exhibitions to the existing perfume shop and daytime café.
The spiral staircase inserted through an opening in the roof was inspired by bukhoor smoke and old Emirati forts. Clay finishes provide texture, and a rooftop garden occupies the upper level. This was neither the shop’s opening nor a relocation, but a renovation that expanded the ways people could spend time in the existing villa.
Villa515 Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2010 | Dhaher establishes Tola, beginning the brand’s story before Villa515 opens. |
| 2013 | Villa515 opens in Jumeirah, combining a perfume shop, a consultation salon, and a laboratory for customizing fragrance. |
| 2016 | A shop opens at The Galleria in Abu Dhabi. |
| 2018 | In the original interview, Dhaher discusses opening the laboratory to young local creators and helping them with formulas. |
| 2019 | The official history records joint involvement with Tola and IFF in the Perfume House’s scent exhibition stations and shop. |
| 2023 | NON Architects completes the renovation of the Jumeirah villa. |
| Checked in October 2026 | Official information lists the Jumeirah and DIFC locations, perfume, bukhoor, and candle workshops, and bespoke creation. |
Selecting Fragrances and Connecting Creators
Stories, Concepts, and Fragrance Quality Before Price
Dhaher does not define niche perfume solely by high prices or limited quantities. The criteria he set out in 2018 were clear:
“the stories, the concept, and the quality of fragrances.”
— Dhaher bin Dhaher
The current official brand list also reveals this breadth. Alongside Nasomatto and Orto Parisi, it presents Histoires de Parfums, État Libre d’Orange, Nobile 1942, Lorenzo Villoresi, Baruti, and Fort & Manlé, among others. The selection is not confined to a single region or type of scent.
For example, the list includes both Histoires de Parfums, which uses fragrance to tell stories about people, poetry, and music, and Baruti, which expresses Spyros Drosopoulos’s personal sense of dreams. This selection invites people to encounter differences in what perfume can communicate, rather than simply comparing ingredient names.
Local Formulas and Visiting Learners
The laboratory was not merely a decorative backdrop to the shop. In 2018, Dhaher described two brands whose Emirati creators had brought in formulas that they refined together, with access to the laboratory. He also welcomed interns from Paris in an exchange of learning.
“It’s mostly about the knowledge sharing.”
— Dhaher bin Dhaher
An important aspect of this exchange is the refusal to treat tradition as fixed. In 2022, Dhaher again challenged the assumption that every creation must contain oud because he comes from the UAE, explaining that he also uses flowers, citrus, and spices. The fragrance culture inherited from his mother and his interest in creators abroad coexist in his work.
Refining formulas together and providing opportunities to use a laboratory means engaging with the beginnings of a maker’s career, in addition to selling finished products. In 2022, he also described an ambition to establish an incubator to support talented newcomers after their internships.
Current Scent Discovery and Laboratory Experiences
From Finished Perfumes to Ingredients and Creation
Villa515’s official website describes an open-laboratory experience that moves from identifying, classifying, and appreciating ingredients to creating fragrance. Its offerings include perfume workshops, bukhoor workshops, candle making, and bespoke creation.
Smelling a finished perfume is not the same as understanding the materials from which it is composed. Bukhoor also extends interest beyond perfume worn on the body to ways of scenting rooms and clothes. Villa515 offers these different points of entry.
Individual dates, instructors, locations, and the process for bespoke creation can be checked through the official contact details. The service does not promise, for example, that Gualtieri himself is permanently on site to teach perfumery.
The Jumeirah Villa and the DIFC Shop
The Jumeirah contact address is on Jumeirah Beach Road in Jumeirah 3. DIFC’s own directory also lists Perfumery by Villa 515 at Gate Avenue 1. Its description indicates that the shop carries candles, diffusers, and home fragrances alongside the work of fragrance creators, including independent perfumers from around the world.
The villa’s laboratory, garden, and renovated spaces should not automatically be assumed to exist at the DIFC shop. Checking which location offers perfume shopping and which provides experiences involving ingredients and creation makes it easier to understand the breadth of the business.
Villa515’s story is not about defining a single scent as characteristically Dubai. It brings knowledge of fragrance rooted in the home, welcomes creators from abroad as guests, and introduces their differences to local people. The outlines of that work remain visible in its starting point: the combination of shop, salon, and laboratory.
The histories of shops around the world and their approaches to discovering fragrance are also introduced in our world perfume shops guide.
References
- Interview with Dhaher bin Dhaher — Alexandre Helwani, The Perfume Chronicles, October 27, 2018
- Villa 515 — Official account of the opening and history
- Villa 515 — Official Jumeirah contact details
- Haute Living — Profile of perfumer Dhaher, July 18, 2016
- Nez — Guillaume Tesson’s interview with Dhaher bin Dhaher about Tola and fragrance cultures, June 11, 2022
- Grain de musc — Tola at Pitti Fragranze, October 3, 2013
- NON Architects — Villa 515 renovation completed in 2023
- Villa 515 — Official brand selection
- Villa 515 — Open laboratory and workshop information
- DIFC — Official directory entry for Perfumery by Villa 515
