Master perfumer Roja Dove: ‘I wanted to leave a legacy the only way I knew how’ (EXCLUSIVE)

“I’m fulfilling a gay stereotype here,” Roja Dove says with characteristic wit, having just shared the story of how his love for perfume began with a kiss from his mother as she was leaving for a night out. That moment would spark his lifelong passion for fragrance: as she leant down to kiss him goodnight, the scent of her face powder mingling with her perfume, she stood backlit by the hall light in a gold lamé dress and diamond necklace. “When you’re a small boy, you see that in books — that’s a fairy or an angel. My everyday mum had been metamorphosed into this magical thing.” It was his first lesson in how a fragrance could transform a moment into a memory.

Born Roger John Dove in 1956, he spent his childhood in Sussex, with his obsession with scent beginning early: “I used to spend all of my pocket money on bottles of perfume,” he recalls with amusement. “I’m sure that I used to send the whole of my classroom at school mad — the idea of subtlety when you’re young is something which doesn’t necessarily come to the forefront of your mind,” says the leader of the Business category of this year’s Attitude 101, empowered by Bentley (See here for the full list of the 10 influential figures who made the Attitude 101 Business list for 2025.)

From an early age, he forged his own identity, beginning to spell his name ‘Roja’ around age 10. His childhood was marked by a difficult relationship with his father, whom Dove says never once called him by his name. “My father in particular managed to make me feel that I was worthless,” he recalls.

“The thing that Peter did for me was he made me believe in myself” – Roja Dove on his life partner

Everything changed at 17, when he met Peter Causer in a Brighton bar. “He was down for a dirty weekend, and I was it,” he explains with a laugh. Peter would become his life partner and a transformative presence in his life: “The thing that Peter did for me was he made me believe in myself.” The following year, Dove moved to Cambridge, where his professional life would take its first significant turn.

Having initially focused on sciences and languages, Dove found his true calling in luxury and fashion. He secured a position at Joshua Taylor, a prestigious independent department store. “It was a wildly smart store,” he recalls. But it was his introduction to French perfume house Guerlain that would ignite a passion that would define his career.

“I started to bombard the company to find out as much as I could about its history,” he says of his relationship with Guerlain. This persistence yielded unexpected results. “One of the members of the family said that I should be given a job because I’d be less of a nuisance in the company than I was out of it,” he laughs. “They were fed up receiving letters and faxes [from me] asking if they could give information to me.”

“I suddenly was put in front of incredible perfumers”

What followed was a 20-year tenure at Guerlain, during which he was tasked with developing a training course that would become the industry standard in the UK. “I suddenly was put in front of incredible perfumers and went to some of the finest oil-producing houses in the world. All the buyers when they joined the industry would come to me to learn about perfumery.”

After Guerlain’s acquisition by LVMH in 1994, Dove took on a significant role: he became the first non-family member to work internationally in perfumery, primarily focusing on the US market while also covering Asia Pacific, Europe, and Australia.

“Before I was seated, they said, ‘We want to open a perfumery'”

His departure in 2001 came after nearly two decades with the firm. “I received an email from the president of the company that I didn’t like,” he recalls. “It wasn’t a precious thing. I just didn’t like it. I thought, ‘OK, you can say what you like, but how you say it, it is not up to you.'” Always meticulous, Dove worked his notice period, choosing 31 October — Halloween — as his final day (“It just appealed to my sense of humour”), launching his own company the next day.

Success came quickly. Within months, Dove had secured clients in the US and Switzerland through his consultancy work. Then, in 2004, his expertise led to a transformative opportunity when Harrods invited him for tea. “Before I was seated, they said, ‘We want to open a perfumery,'” he recalls.

The result was the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie, a unique stand-alone boutique situated on Harrods’ fifth floor, away from the traditional perfume department. In an industry transformed by corporate acquisitions, Dove’s vision proved revolutionary. “It’s really important to understand at that time the industry had been bought up by detergent manufacturers, fundamentally,” he explains. “Everything was about lifestyle, so all the classical perfumery houses had been considered old-fashioned.”

“The perfumery was a huge success”

However, rather than following the industry practice of stocking complete ranges, Dove curated what he considered each brand’s finest creations, even convincing houses to revive discontinued classics. “The perfumery was a huge success,” he recalls. “It really did make a mark on the industry, and it made such a mark that Harrods in fact opened a brand-new floor, the sixth floor, which is now only a perfume floor. And it was based around the concept of my perfumery.”

The Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie’s success paved the way for an even bolder venture: the launch of Roja Parfums (now Roja London) in Harrods on 2 July 2011. While the industry’s average price point was £30, Dove’s brand entered the market at £295. “What we were selling was perfume. What the industry generally sells is eau de toilette,” Dove explains.

“I remember feeling sick,” he says of the launch day. “I’m suddenly looking at our life savings as boxes, bottles, tubes, pumps.” Despite preparing six months’ worth of stock, within 10 days, they had sold out of every piece in the store. Harrods’ managing director Michael Ward would later declare it the most successful launch in the store’s history.

This success also brought some unexpected recognition. “The phone rang and somebody called across to me: ‘It’s Downing Street!’. I said, ‘Oh, OK. Put them through.,’ then, ‘Hello, Roja Dove speaking.’ I got, ‘We’d like you to come to Number 10 Downing Street.” This led to his appointment as an Ambassador for the GREAT Campaign.

“It became our biggest selling fragrance worldwide”

Among Dove’s launch collection was A Goodnight Kiss, drawing on that pivotal childhood moment that first connected him to the power of fragrance. “I was really nervous of launching it because it was such a personal story,” Dove admits, “but it became our biggest selling fragrance worldwide, which was a very lovely thing.”

Its success validated what Dove had long understood about the profound relationship between scent and memory. “When you’re born, you have no preconception of smell,” he explains. “If the first time you smelt vanilla it was because you went to see your grandma, who made a treat for you, even if there’s the tiniest whisper of vanilla inside the fragrance, you will end up most likely liking the smell.”

This understanding informed his bespoke fragrance work, where he would analyse a client’s “life journey of odours” without revealing what they were smelling. In one remarkable instance with a journalist, Dove recalls how he accurately deduced details about the man’s upbringing, from his childhood home’s mid-century architecture to his father’s character and his mother’s free-spirited nature. “It’s just to do with reactions to odours,” he explains.

Though his client list grew to include global royalty and celebrities alike, Dove has now largely stepped away from bespoke work, which he describes as “extraordinarily time-consuming and costly”. Today, “there are only two people left in the world I do it for,” he says.

Inspiring the next generation

Dove’s deep appreciation of scent’s emotional resonance has attracted an unexpectedly young audience — 53 per cent of Roja London’s clients are under 34, with 21 per cent between 18 and 24, he says. “It makes me so incredibly happy that what I’m making a whole new generation relates to so strongly globally.”

Indeed, Dove is now focused on nurturing the next generation of talent, collaborating with perfumers at the start of their careers — an unusual move in an industry that typically celebrates established names. These young creators receive creative briefs without price constraints, a rarity when “the best quality jasmine is well over £30,000 a kilo”. Dove reasons: “When any perfumer gets a brief usually, they get the idea and then how much they’re allowed to spend on the formula. Well, that stops creativity.”

His commitment to mentoring extends throughout his career. “If anybody writes to me, they take the time to write, I always try to see them,” he says. “I’ll see no more than 15 minutes or half an hour, but I always see them.”

“I want to leave a legacy for my family name”

Dove’s latest creation, Lost in Paris, exemplifies the storytelling approach that has defined his work. He recalls visiting Paris on a freezing day, moving from the refined hotel Le Meurice to following an enticing aroma through the streets: “Paris was absolutely frozen. All the fountains had icicles… and there was this incredibly beautiful smell. I followed it to a street vendor making crêpes. There I was, standing in the middle of the street in Paris, having come from one of the very smartest hotels.” This contrast between luxury and simple pleasure became the inspiration for the scent, which he describes as capturing the drama “like the flambé in a very glamorous room, and you’ve become that centre of attention”.

Looking back on his journey from that Brighton bar to global success, Dove reflects that his legacy is already secure. “I launched my brand for a very simple reason. I want to leave a legacy for my family name,” he explains. “As a gay man, I was not going to have children. And so, I wanted to leave a legacy the only way I knew how. If the brand closed down tomorrow, which I know it won’t — it’s going from strength to strength — I know that I’ve left the mark that I wanted to leave. That’s without question.”

This feature is taken from issue 363 of Attitude magazine, available to order here or alongside 15 years of back issues on the Attitude app.

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