Parma's perfumes

Scented mythologies. Which, like all mythology not "out of nothing," as he wrote Roland Barthes in Miti d'oggi.

They exaggerate, distort, magnify, although they had always given a real start. In the case of "perfumes madeinparma" is the affective liaison (and smell) of the Duchess Maria Luigia with violet flower become the symbol of his Duchy.

In Glauco Lombardi Museum are many references and examples of this passion: the creation of the fragrance to the Violetta di Parma, formulated for the first time for her by the monks of the monastery of SS. Annunziata, the tips that led to the poor of the city that they brought, honoring her, a bunch of violets.

The first structuring of the perfume production in Parma therefore has had its input in the existence of a court, then in the application of sophistication that springed from it.

But if the courtier trait and france influences have played a major role in characterizing the "perfume of Parma", the transition from a little less than a handicraft production that, at least as an aspiration, looked to a broader public, has a recognized founder .

It Ludovico Borsari, a gifted craftsman whose entrepreneurial insights and skills, however, profited from a very favorable environment, and that had its pin in the existence of a major glass industry. The Bormioli glassware - whose founding act dates back to 1825 when the family gets Altare from Maria Luisa Government of Austria the grant to start a glassworks - were in fact decisive in setting up a chain of perfume, which in the twentieth century has seen the rise many manufacturing companies of essences: the OPSO, the Triumphal Arch, the Ducale, the Adam, the Morris, the Italart; but also companies specializing in printing, paper converting, and packaging materials.

A story waiting to be written this and that, as the entire industry of accessories and fashion, was the work of sniffing entrepreneurs. Self-made-men, operating, with the exception of the glass industry, the small industrial scale. But very skilled and ready to grasp the potential of a market that between the two world wars, but especially after the second, and in particular with the economic boom, began to open up and rely on a wider audience and more concerned with the elegance and the accessories, primarily to perfume, both for you and for him. More precisely, it was a public whose increased purchasing power went hand in hand with foreign things here then that if the shoes "made in Parma 'were called Barrett and Alexender, with the same intonation with which he wore a anglica trench or ordered at the bar a whiskey, perfumes in deference all'intraducibilità parfum and eau de cologne, were called Napoleon, Adam, Jacques Horace.

The historic and nationally known Borsari & Figli were standing out the Morris and Italart, fate at the turn of the 40s and 50s, the work of Giuseppe Borri and Attillo Tanzi.

Particularly significant, under the publicity aspect, it was the creative contribution of Herbert Carboni: graphic designer Parmesan capable of giving significant added value to the commercial communication of a product such as the scent, whose signature style was among the best ever. But now, when the economic miracle with its consumerism self-sufficient, still dominant in the decade sixties, gave way to the rising cult of the "designer" products, the family dimension perfume industry parmigiana proved inadequate to meet the challenges posed from a product increasingly international, increasingly concentrated in the hands of multinationals and whose success was beginning to be entirely in the hands of the great designers. Great Signatures.

But this is another story, we will tell and we will develop. Starting from attempts (for example the Florbath in the 70/80) to reunite in one brand major parmigiane businesses in order to compete on the global market, the happy revival of an old product like Acqua di Parma, stated in 2015 one of the best perfumes of the year by the international prize of the perfume Academy.

Here we will only point out how in collaboration with the International Water Prize Scriptures we realized very special edition of cologne. And 'H2 Eau de cologne, an essence created by Italart, one bottle made by Bormioli Luigi, decorated by Hinds, for the design of Glennis Beneventi. H2 Eau de cologne was achieved only in 50 copies which are sold at € 25.