Lorenzo Villoresi: L. Villoresi

LORENZO VILLORESI

The founder of The maison Lorenzo ViLLoresi reVeaLs his uniVerse of fragrances

Defining him a perfumer is correct, but it is not enough. His passion for fragrances comes from his love for distant journeys but above all from study. Real study. For philosophy and for religions. Thanks to his curiosity and a background in the humanities, Lorenzo Villoresi has succeeded in transposing his culture into the art of making perfumes. His fragrances are like none other and cannot be like any other one, because they are all the result of the same fervid mind and a heart imbued with poetry.

EXPORT MAGAZINE: How did your passion for the world of fragrances begin? LORENZO VILLORESI: It began as a hobby. In the early 1980s. during some journeys to the Middle East, Egypt, Sudan and Morocco, I immediately noticed the deep bond between the fragrances and everyday life, different from our European habits. Coffee was served naturally with cardamom, tea with mint, cigarettes with amber, the narghile with rose water or orange blossom water. All the tourists who go to these countries are impressed by the markets. The merchants in the suqs, even in those days, knew how to receive people trying to satisfy them in the choice of the fragrances, often created by mixing some ingredients together for example mimosa and lavender which were actually from France. Some proposals on the other hand, were imitations of wellknown fragrances, amongst the best-selling ones of the moment. Others had imaginary names such as Nefertiti, Harem or Papyrus. Curious, I started to bring small amounts back to Italy, for fun for than anything else. I also came across, without knowing it, some old bottles, even some by Baccarat. I used magnificent marble boxes to keep the local fragrances in or other objects that attracted my attention as a young student, avid for every new discovery. Since 1981, the year of my first trip to the Middle East and even after 1986, the year I graduated, I started to lead a sort of parallel life, during the day on books on philosophy, religion and Biblical philology

and at night on the books that discussed distillation and perfumery. Thinking back, I realize that thee was only one guiding thread; my innate desire for knowledge and experimentation. I found what I needed at Bizzarri, a shop in Florence that sold essences, incenses and health and beauty products. It was a fascinating shop with bottles and caps of frosted glass, distillers and alembic stills! Understanding the opportunity to get to know first of all the individual raw materials, I took chemistry lessons and began. Then I had a steel distiller of only10 litres built to ty out tests of distillation, obtaining surprising results. How can I forget the joy in front of the first 2 grams of essence of bay leaf or the inebriating fragrance of distilled rosewater that pervaded the whole room …And at the same time, how not to remember the experiments that failed, as in the case of magnolia which in no way wanted to be transformed into an essence!

EM: Can we say that in perfumery it is allowed to dare? LV: It is always right to have a penchant for the originality of a proposal. The world is full of nice things! What makes the difference is the real desire, almost the need, to create something new. It is not always simple to succeed in this. We start from a vision, from a dream. If it is not possible to work immediately on the creation of the fragrance, the dream “goes into a drawer”. Later on it will be possible to develop it by creating a new fragrance. It is like a suspended desire. How do you transform an idea into a fragrance? By trying to find some of the main characteristics that strike us to translate the idea into a harmonious set of odorous notes. At times a poem is written that describes this vision and that corresponds to the idea and the fragrance itself. The poem has to seize the soul of the vision. EM: The sources of inspiration can thus be infinite… LV: …and different for each one of us, depending on our story and sensitivity. A few days ago, I was reading with my son Alessandro who is studying perfumery in Grasse while collaborating with us, some translations from Plutarch on the subject of the fragrances used during Cleopatra’s parties. We can read that stones of great value, such as carnelian or malachite were chosen which could become very precious chalices. A similar story is an invitation to a dream and could foster the creation of a new fragrance for new and particular contains for sun care. I could ‘read’ each fragrance through the vision with which it was created and took shape. Let’s take for example “Iperborea”, a fragrance which is inspired by the Hyperboreans, a mythical population mentioned in fragments of “The Greek Wisdom” collected by Colli and Montinari. They lived beyond the Aurora Borealis, in the cold of the ices, and apparently they were immortal. In imagining flowers that come out of the ice, I thought of the snowdrop: all high and very fresh odorous notes, slightly floral, close to the atmosphere of the passages that describe this mythical and very ancient population.

EM: Is the true perfumer the one who is able to make something unique that others cannot, as for all artistic professions, from music to art to writing? LV: A Maison like ours - a journey of over thirty years – has to express its own identity. It is not enough to make good perfumes. We have an important responsibility that is developed in time, and our work is a work in progress, giving rise and feeding a set of factors that are renewed every day. At the time when the identity of a Maison is expressed through its creations, it becomes fairly difficult for others to try and imitate not simply a fragrance but a whole path.

EM: How can the spirit of a Maison be interpreted over time? LV: By letting others follow the trends of the moment and at the same time taking your own path, and developing the latent potential relative to the identity of the Maison. If you create a fragrance which respects your philosophy, which expresses authenticity and is part of your discourse over time, it does not matter whether ten, a hundred and a thousand people like it or that it meets the taste of those passionate about fragrance immediately or later. Authenticity and coherence, the “made well” are values which constantly feed the spirit of a Maison with vital sap.

EM: Has being based in Florence, a cradle of art and culture, influenced you in some way? LV: We say quite simply: “We are based in Florence”. I have fought all my life not to have a style of belonging. “Determinatio condamnatio”: why allow ourselves to be conditioned even because being conditioned by styles that do not belong to us even if they are frequent in perfumery, such as the Victorian or the Baroque? A Maison has to be free to express itself without particular constraints. The artisanal and artistic world of Florence, however, has been very precious for the production of out collections: the extraordinary manual skills of the artisans has allows producing particular packaging that is highly appreciated. Precious crystals and various types of accessories, using materials that belonged to the art of perfumery that are today unusual, such as marble, travertino marble, alabaster, wood silver and ebony. AS can be noted, one characteristic of the collections is that our fragrances have names in various languages and belong to different periods and cultures. Let’s take for example “Atman Xaman”: not everybody knows that the term Xaman is an archaic form of the word shaman. As a creator of fragrances, I had a secret dream: a fragrance made of leather, tobacco and other ingredients that are seductive, magical and profound like… the shaman himself.

EM: How do foreign markets react to these imaginary names? LV: Some appreciate them a great deal, while others find it hard to understand them, which is normal. Fr example, the fragrance “Teint de Neige” does not literally mean ‘shade of snow’ but refers to the white complexion of a woman’s face. The names of the fragrances are almost all dreamlike, inspired by myths, fables and legends.

EM: Is the colour element important? LV: Yes, however we do not have a corporate colour, one that we like more than others. I admit that I prefer silver to gold because it is more dreamlike, linked to the night and to the moon.

EM: The first thirty years marked by such an intense activity must have flown by …. We are sure that there must be a lot of projects on the horizon… LV: They have flown by too fast…! At the moment there are various activities under way and new fragrances and products under study. New spaces will allow us shortly to expand various types of production.

EM: We have left the subject “Museo Villoresi” until last, but we all know how challenging its creation was and the results are beyond all expectations. LV: The project of the Museum meets a vocation hat I would call educational - informative. These words can seem a little boring but in our sector there is a lot of advertising and little information. The people who visit our Museum realize the difference. We love the world of the aromatic materials that form the heart of the Museum; some ingredients are almost perfumes themselves, you just have to try and smell a flower of frangipane, or cistus or bergamot. In the museum everything is shown and illustrated simply and completely. People of every age and from every part of the world, even from Grasse, come to visit it. It took us over three years to complete it and I have to recognize that a decisive role was played by my wife, Ludovica, who expressed her artistic gifts in the museum and her botanical skills in the selection of plants linked to the world of perfumery, placed in the garden and on the veranda that are an integral part of the museum space. Our friend the architect Luigi Franco also made an invaluable contribution to the creation of the whole complex.

EM: We notice, not only from the photos at your magnificent head office full of history and humanity, that family is very important for you… LV: As well as Alessandro and Ludovica, my children Artur and Gemma are also taking an interest in various aspects of the business and their lively participation is a pleasant and invaluable contribution.

Claudia Stagno