PITTI FRAGRANZE 2021.

GETTING TOGETHER AFTER A LONG BREAK

After an unwanted two-year pause, Pitti Fragranze, an exhibition of artistic perfumery hosted in Stazione Leopolda, Florence, brought perfumers, brands, manufacturers, distributors, perfume critics, and publishers together for the 19th time.

The perfume business had a very hard time withstanding both the limitations of online communication only and Brexit and the languor of both spirit and market. Careful comparisons with previous years were often offset by the excitement that Pitti Fragranze happened at all.

I think the sentence of the 19th Pitty Fragranze should be: “We are finally getting back together!”, and I also felt that way, even though this is the first Pitti Fragranze in which Mirisna participates.

After experiencing anti-epidemic measures, in an almost childishly cheerful way, some people I got to know only through the very limiting online communication seemed closer than I had expected, so let me describe uniting and reuniting in the “new normal” times:

Behind the mask – a bright, big smile and light and cautious remarks about the expectations.
Above the mask – the sparkling eyes. The sparkles reminded me of the eyes of a teenager, when he or she finally gets out of the house and right to the Town with friends, after being too harshly grounded for something that wasn’t his/her fault:

Florence!
And the sparkles in the eyes!

HIGHLIGHTS

The heart of Pitti Fragranze event, at least for me, is Chandler Burr’s Retrospective and Conversation with Ralf Schwieger, a perfumer whose art of creation has changed the face of today’s perfumery. Read the full article:

I also listened to MANE’s Raw format and attended Molinard’s presentation on a Century of Habanita (1921-2021).

MASSNICHE RISING

I toured both sections: Classico (presenting brands already exhibited at Pitti Fragranze) and Spring (the new ones exhibiting at Pitti for the first time). Some of the outcomes of the two-year restrictions were felt in both halls:

Among the new brands were those that have been on the market for a while but did not have the opportunity to exhibit due to a two-year pause. Because of that, they are perceived as new, although they are not.

In the Classico section, distributors held a significant number of stands, presenting a handful of brands in one place. As I learned, some of these brands had their own stands before the COVID-19 outbreak.

Based on the significant number of perfumes I smelled, I believe that I will use the new word — massniche — more often than I would like to.

I will cherish in my memory the attentive, detailed, long-lasting, and severe, as well as the very insightful personalised presentation of Aurora Carrara from UERMI and a warm presentation of the Pekji new collection. With curious questions and encouragement for instant feedback, Ömer İpekçi and his wife watched me as I raised my eyebrows in surprise and giggled “Oops!” at the scent of the blotter.

I was enchanted by Olivier Durbano’s touchingly ethereal personality and Pissara Umavijani’s heart-warming cordiality and cheerfulness as much as by the depth of devotion to the actual values ​​of artistic perfumery and self-consciousness that Andrea Rubini of Rubini Profumi rightfully presented.

I brought home the news served in two Masque Milano presentations, both polished to the finest detail and held by Alessandro Brun (new exclusive Milano collection) and Riccardo Tedeschi (Opera and Le Donne di Masque). I was also delighted with the visual presentation of the new Francesca Bianchi brand, Hedonik, which is conceptually different. The new perfume smells different, as well.
“Francesca Bianchi DNA”?
So, try Divine Perversion, and then, if you still need to define it, start again.

Right after a conversation in which the Matiere Premiere team announced activities aimed at perfume writers and perfume lovers, and quite inconsistently with my usual restraint when it comes to sharing stories related to perfumes I wear privately, I told master perfumer Aurelien Guichard how and why one of his classic re-creations had served me as an everyday life-saver in the most challenging part of my life.

… People who need people
Are the luckiest people in the world…

I also have to mention that at the end of the very first day, my nose died. Or fired me, literally. My sense of smell completely cancelled the collaboration, which is a physiological inevitability after smelling dozens and dozens of fragrances in an almost hectic rhythm.

But my first Pitti Fragranze was not just about getting to know newly launched perfumes or new houses or recognising trends while they are still shaping—in the very core of this exhibition are the people of perfumes and the magic blend of the known, the expected, and the surprise.
Despite the prevailing trends and all the limitations that perfume entrepreneurship has faced in the last two years, the spirit of Pitti Fragranze smells great!

Pitti Fragranze smells like a perfume whose balanced character presents colours, scents, and names shaped in different circumstances. It is like the blend of traditional business authority and ever-fresh brightness, like a handful of unfulfilled expectations plus the utmost precious drop of fascinating, uncalculated surprise.