By Rosa Smith. Cover Image: At Symbiotic Experience. Artworks by Gisella Alfieri Sabattini.
The curtain opens in Florence on Pitti Fragranze 2023, the show dedicated to the world of international artistic perfumery that will take place from September 15 to 17 at the Stazione Leopolda. Here are 5 fantastic things to discover at this edition, the 21st, which will be a wonderful stage between on the border between artificial Artificial intelligence, perfumes, multisensoriality and new olfactory universes.
1. AT PITTI FRAGRANZE 2023 YOU CAN DIVE INTO THE MULTISENSORY EXPERIENCE BETWEEN ART AND FRAGRANCES
This year’s theme is “Reinvented Perception,” or the possibility of perceiving fragrances in an immersive and emotional way using new creative experiments that involve sounds, images, digital and multimedia art. To dive into this new vision at Pitti Fragranze there will be an installation to fully enjoy: Symbiotic Experience _La Percezione Reinventata, curated by Paola Gariboldi and Susanna Macchia. The multisensory journey, created in collaboration between four digital artists and four famous perfumer noses, Alberto Morillas, Coralie Spicher, Serge Majoullier and Jerome Di Marino through an osmosis of mutual inspirations, will be inside the Spazio Alcatraz at Stazione Leopolda. A fascinating multisensory journey between imagination and reality.
2. AN EXCITING TOUR AMONG THE ITALIAN INDEPENDENT PERFUMERY ARTIST IS POSSIBILE ONLY AT PITTI FRAGRANZE
An unpredictable and exciting journey from Treviso to Sicily: at Pitti Fragranze 2023 there will be many independent Italian brands created by young entrepreneurs and artists who reinterpret tradition while looking to the future. Among the booths you can discover Step Aboard, an inclusive hair and body line founded in Milan with a genderless soul, ageless target and an urban style that combines functionality, graffiti design and emotions, and you can immerse yourself in a wild Piemonte and his dreamy wine land with Acqua delle Langhe and its Monviso, a home fragrance that evokes rivers, mountains and rocky peaks. Going to Sicily is always a good idea, do you agree? So step into the island with the vibrant and hypnotic notes of Aqua Lustralis, the new “baby” of Acqua di Noto. Also Sicilian is Ciatu, a line of cosmetic products that evoke the mysteries of Sicily with native, natural and organic materials among olive oil, wildflower honey and natural essences such as orange or almond.
As the name already announces, Carola fra i Trulli is a company that pays homage to the Itria Valley, the region of trulli in Puglia: founded by Milanese architect Carola Altamura, it is an olfactory mix linked to the memory of summer vacations, among jasmine flowers and wild scents. And would you ever have imagined smelling like a salad? It comes from the north, in the ancient Venetian lagoon, the red radicchio extract used in the products of Avere la Barba, a brand with a vintage look that mixes scents of the Orient with northeastern Italy. Get ready to go on a journey of a very special kind.
3. AT PITTI FRAGRANZE 2023 YOU’LL LEARN MORE ABOUT PERFUMERY INGREDIENTS
Curious to learn more about the raw materials of perfumery? Don’t miss a trip to RAW, the format of the show dedicated to the most strategic ingredients for creating a perfume in collaboration with MANE. This year at Pitti Fragranze the concept will focus mainly on local ingredients and the fascinating extraction processes and most futuristic techniques, an all-Italian journey between past, present and future. To further engage and experience this world, there will also be two demonstration workshops for the public and operators, both scheduled for Friday, Sept. 15, one at 12:30 p.m. and the other at 3 p.m., in which the MANE Jungle Essence extraction technique will be unveiled.
4. THE NEW CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT IN PERFUMERY FOR GEN Z IS AN ESCLUSIVE TOPIC AT PITTI FRAGRANZE 2023
How to attract Gen Z and involve young people with niche artistic perfumery? With fabulous stories, entertainment, and unforgettable multisensory experiences. To learn how creatives, artists and essence houses are moving to engage new generations, mark your agenda for a talk entitled “Fragrances and Gen Z: how to build customer engagement from social media to retail experience between music, art and multimedia”, created in collaboration with Istituto Marangoni, to be held on Saturday, September 16 at 4 p.m.
On stage with interesting experiences and ideas about innovative and multisensory marketing will be the 23 year-old star of the web Martina Blotto @perfumeofthemoon, tiktoker and content creator expert in niche perfumery, Giovanna Flacco, global brand manager of Officina Profumo Farmaceutica Santa Maria Novella, Felice Limosani, visual artist and DJ, Michael Partouche, musician, perfume entrepreneur and founder of Room 1015, and Valentina Grigoletto of Istituto Marangoni Firenze, together with the two journalists Francesca Delogu and Silvia Manzoni. Really dream team!
Stay tuned because soon, given the strong demand from the market for specialized professionals and product managers in the world of fragrances and and niche perfumery, two new study programs at Istituto Marangoni Firenze will start. One is the one-year intensive Product Management for Fragrances and Cosmetics Course, a program to build a successful career in the world of luxury fragrances ranging from history to business and product management in fragrances and cosmetics to communication strategies. The second is the Master’s in Olfactory Experience Management for the Luxury Industry, with a focus on the design and development of olfactory and sensory experiences, customer engagement and emotional fragrance development. A new generation of perfume managers will rock the fragrance world!
5. GET READY TO DISCOVER THE MAGNETIC ARAB-ISLAMIC FRAGRANCES
Thinking about the world of perfumes, the imagination often runs to spicy, sensual and aromatic worlds linked to wonderful tales like Thousand and One Nights. An opportunity to learn more about these mysterious and fascinating universes at Pitti Fragranze is the presentation of the book “Perfumes and Essences at the Court of the Caliphs (Dario Flaccovio Editore) by Caterina Greppi, an essay on medieval Arab-Islamic perfumery that will be presented on Sunday, September 17 afternoon at 4 p.m., with the participation of historian Franco Cardini to explore the topic in depth and Sicilian nose and perfumer Antonio Alessandria.
