Tomi Ahmed

About

Tomi Ahmed is a London-based co-founder of IIUVO, the independent fragrance house he started with Leo Gibbon. In interviews he is the one who explains the ideas behind IIUVO's scents, which are made with outside perfumers rather than composed by him.

Before IIUVO, Ahmed worked as a visual merchandiser for Comme des Garçons. He and Gibbon met at a party and bonded over hip hop, films and candles. IIUVO started with scented candles, and its first three sold out within a week of launching at Colette in Paris. No perfumery school or apprenticeship is named in any source.

The first IIUVO fragrances, the Edition One trio Soigné, Gilot and Fonteyn, launched in 2017 after two years of work. The founders chose the French house Robertet and say they worked with a different nose for each scent. Ahmed explained the aim to the trade press: Soigné, which he expected to be the brand's best seller, draws on Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. BULLSHIT, a concept created and synthesised by IIUVO with the artist Stefan Brüggemann, began as a candle in 2016 and became an eau de parfum in 2020; Ahmed describes it as a paradoxical idea turned into scent through language. Database listings credit it to both founders.

IIUVO treats scent as one medium among music, film and photography. Each fragrance is built around a muse or a memory and is unisex.