Van Gils

Van Gils is a Dutch menswear and fragrance brand from the Netherlands. It began as a tailoring house and later expanded into perfume, and today the name covers two connected businesses: a menswear label and a fragrance line sold under the tagline "Release your real you." The brand's own story page describes it as a Dutch tailor active "since 1948" [9], founded by Miel van Gils — also recorded under his full first name, Hermiel [3][9]. The fragrance line, the beauty side of the name, is made in the Netherlands and sold worldwide through perfumeries and drugstores [2].

The company frames its identity around self-confidence and staying true to oneself rather than chasing trends. Its perfumes remain in production, and the brand describes itself as "strictly itself since the 80's."

According to the brand's fashion-side story page, Van Gils traces its founding to 1948 in the Brabant region of the Netherlands, when Miel van Gils set up a tailoring shop [9]. The brand's own account describes a modest start — the founder began his clothing label "with just a few borrowed sewing machines" [3] — that grew into a European fashion label as the company kept, in its words, faithful to its own style rather than passing trends.

Sources record the founder's name in two forms: "Miel van Gils" on the fashion story page and "Hermiel van Gils" on the fragrance site [3]. These refer to the same person, with "Miel" the short form of "Hermiel."

The clothing business came first; the fragrances followed. Van Gils says its perfume line launched in the 1980s, beginning with Strictly for Men, which it calls the line "created for charismatic and self-confident men" [5]. Third-party fragrance databases place the first perfume's release more precisely in 1985, though the brand's own pages give only "the 1980s" [12]. The company continued adding scents over the following decades, most recently Strictly No.01, a whisky-inspired fragrance introduced in 2023.

A note on dates: the "1948" year refers to the founding of the Van Gils brand as a tailoring and fashion house, while "1985" — often cited elsewhere — marks the launch of the fragrance line rather than the company itself [9][12].

The Van Gils menswear brand is part of Logo International, a Dutch group that also owns O'Neill and We Fashion [8]. The fragrance line is described by the company as its own, manufactured in the Netherlands rather than out-licensed to a separate perfume house [2].

Van Gils centres its messaging on self-confidence and authenticity. "When you live with self-confidence, you are not guided by what others do. You ignore the trends and stay true to yourself," the brand writes on its about page, framing its products around living as one's real self rather than following fashion. The company positions itself as consistent over time, using the line "strictly itself since the 80's" and the tagline "Release your real you." Its fragrances are priced and distributed for a broad market, sold through perfumeries and drugstores worldwide.

Fragrance is the brand's beauty category. The line's flagship and first scent is Strictly for Men, which the brand describes as "characteristic, masculine and seductive" [5]; the brand lists top notes of lemon, bergamot and verbena, a heart of thyme, coriander and cardamom, and a warm base. Later additions include Between Sheets and Basic Instinct among the earlier scents, and a more recent group aimed at a younger audience — the "I" fragrances (including I For Her and I Dare) and the 2023 release Strictly No.01. The perfumes are made in the Netherlands.

Van Gils is active. Its fragrance site is current, carrying a 2016–2026 copyright and a 2023 product launch, and its perfumes are still produced in the Netherlands and sold internationally. The menswear side continues under parent group Logo International, with its retail increasingly consolidated under sister brand We Fashion.