IQOS announces the debut of CURIOUS STUDIO, a new creative platform that invites adult nicotine users in the global IQOS community to step inside the creative process—leaving their own trace alongside renowned voices from culture, art, design and technology. Launching at Dubai Design Week 2026 and continuing toward Milan Design Week 2027, CURIOUS STUDIO opens a door usually reserved for the creative few, turning creativity from something to be observed into something to be entered, shared and shaped collectively.
This first public chapter also speaks to PMI’s long-term commitment and to creating relevant experiences for adult nicotine consumers in the region.
“The UAE and the wider region are strategically important to PMI — not only as dynamic markets, but as a global hub for innovation, creativity and cultural exchange,” said Richa Rustagi, Managing Director Philip Morris Middle East. “Launching Curious Studio globally for the first time in Dubai reflects our long-term commitment to the region and our ambition to create responsible, meaningful and culturally relevant experiences for adult nicotine consumers. Through initiatives like this, we aim to bring adult IQOS users and their ideas together and contribute to the region’s growing role on the global cultural and innovation landscape.”
Part art, part experiment, Curious Studio is a living creative space built around one belief: no creation starts from one source alone. It is shaped by a constellation of inputs—people, places, gestures, instincts, memories and emotions—each leaving its trace before the final form appears.
For its first edition, IQOS has teamed up with OUCHHH Collective, the pioneering multidisciplinary studio collective working at the intersection of art, design, science and technology. Known for transforming data into immersive visual experiences, OUCHHH Collective brings its distinctive artistic language to CURIOUS STUDIO, revealing the hidden patterns that connect people, places and emotions – and giving individual expressions of curiosity new scale, texture and form.
“CURIOUS STUDIO is a natural evolution of what IQOS stands for: the belief that curiosity is not just a mindset, but a driver that moves people forward,” said Alina Igritskaya, Director Brand Marketing Heat-not-Burn, Philip Morris International.
Dubai Design Week marks the launch of this evolving journey. As the Middle East and North Africa’s region most important design platform, the event provides the stage for OUCHHH Collective to reveal the work co-created with selected international and regional collaborators—a first expression of what happens when different cultures, disciplines and ways of seeing come together.
“CURIOUS STUDIO begins with a deeply human impulse: the instinct to question, imagine and connect,” said Ferdi Alici, Founder of OUCHHH Collective. “With fourteen artists, we are already seeing unexpected connections take shape. Imagine what can emerge when thousands of adult IQOS consumers around the world add their own trace.”
For Dubai Design Week, hosting CURIOUS STUDIO reflects the event’s growing role as a platform for local, regional and international creative voices.
“We are excited to welcome CURIOUS STUDIO to Dubai Design Week,” said Natasha Carella, Dubai Design Week’s Director. “As the event continues to grow in international relevance, our role is to create a platform where artists, designers and creative communities from the region can be seen, supported and connected to a wider global conversation. CURIOUS STUDIO reflects that ambition – bringing together local and international voices through art, technology and experimentation
Within this moment, IQOS ILUMA i BEYOND is introduced in Dubai as the symbolic entry point into CURIOUS STUDIO: a tangible expression of curiosity, collective imagination and creative participation. More than a limited edition, it opens the path from Dubai to Milan, revealing what CURIOUS STUDIO can become when adult IQOS consumers around the world take part.
From Dubai onward, the international IQOS community will be invited to respond to one question: “What is the most curious thing about you?” Each answer becomes a small personal imprint, carried forward into the wider creative process and transformed by OUCHHH Collective into a collective artwork to be revealed at Milan Design Week 2027.
