Until 2012, Istanbul had no niche perfume house of its own. Then two friends, Mert Guzel and Murat Katran, founded Nishane and gave the city its first. The name comes from "nisane", Turkish for a sign or symbol.
The origin is a party story. The two met at a mutual friend's birthday in 2010. As BeautyMatter tells it, Katran said his dream was to build Istanbul's first niche perfume brand, and Guzel shot back, "No, it's my dream." Two years later they founded the company with their own money. No investor, no conglomerate, no fashion label writing the cheques.
The breakthrough arrived in 2017. Hacivat, part of the Shadow Play collection, is named after a character from Karagoz, the traditional Turkish shadow-puppet theatre. Composed by perfumer Jorge Lee and bottled at extrait strength, it sets pineapple, grapefruit and bergamot over cedar, patchouli and jasmine on a mossy base. Bright fruit on top, serious woods underneath. Together with its stablemate Ani, it has carried the Nishane name into more than 120 countries.
Worth saying plainly: "niche" usually just means expensive. Nishane is the rarer thing, a house that was self-funded from day one and earned its place on merit, from a city with no perfume establishment behind it. That is a better story than most heritage myths, and it happens to be true.
Acivat is our take on Hacivat, and Anis our take on Ani, both UK-made 35% extrait sprays. Browse the Nishane-inspired collection, or read our Hacivat story next.
