Onitsuka Tiger Has Entered The Perfume Market

Often times, sneaker brands launching perfumes is usually where taste goes to die. Yeah, you’ve seen them – loud bottles, scents that belong in the room freshener category or smell like a duty free aisle at 2 a.m.

So, of course, when Onitsuka Tiger announced its foraying into the perfume business, we pay attention.

First things first.

Onitsuka Tiger isn’t some overnight hype factory — it’s old enough to be your dad’s dad’s sneaker. Founded in Kobe in 1949 by Kihachiro Onitsuka with the earnest idea that sports can change lives, it initially made basketball shoes long before “athleisure” had a name. It wound up shaping a whole chunk of modern sneaker culture, so much so that the company evolved into ASICS in the late ’70s and the Tiger label drifted into heritage territory.

But here’s where it gets cinematic: the model that really made the brand wasn’t a new tech runner or a collab with some buzzy influencer. It was the Mexico 66. Released ahead of the 1968 Olympics, it featured those now-iconic tiger stripes — a design that transcended athletic utilitarianism and seeped into pop culture after Bruce Lee wore a lookalike in Game of Death, then Uma Thurman gave it cult credibility in Kill Bill.

In India, the story is similar: the sneaker culture that once swung between Nike and Adidas has been broadening over the last few years. Onitsuka Tiger opened its first standalone stores in key cities years ago, planting the flag for people who want different in the oversaturated sneaker market.

Trainers are moving away from chunky, logo-drunk designs and back toward timeless classics. Industry trend reports for 2025 flagged Onitsuka Tiger’s retro silhouettes alongside other comfort-meets-design staples as officially in.

And even more so, over the last few years, the brand has been inching away from “cool sneaker brand” into something closer to a fashion house: Paris runway shows, architectural flagships, a Matthew Williams-era Givenchy collaboration. The brand has been rewriting itself as a lifestyle label.

So maybe, that quiet confidence is exactly why, decades after its birth, it’s not just surviving but thriving — and now sniffing around fragrance.

The brand has launched four Eau de Parfums, all developed in-house and produced in Grasse, France. And there are four scents.

“One” opens green and crisp—mint, citrus, white florals—before grounding itself in leather and woods. Two is introverted: soft citrus, incense, musk, sandalwood. Three is warm and textured—orange, violet, spice, smoky woods. And finally, four starts sharp with peppermint and bergamot, cuts through nutmeg and absinthe, and settles into vanilla and vetiver: fresh and spicy.

All four come in 100 ml bottles and are crafted in Grasse, with the brand even documenting the factory process.

But the real question isn’t whether these scents are “good.” Plenty of luxury perfumes are technically excellent and still vanish into the beige blur of airport duty-free. The question is whether Onitsuka can do in fragrance what it did in footwear.

Will these perfumes become the Mexico 66 of scent? Or will they slip politely into the long line of fashion houses trying to foray into something they shouldn’t have?

Well, as they say, only time will tell.