Interviews

Sogno Reale Mendittorosa: Interview with Stefanie Squeglia

05/20/15 15:17:28 

by: Serguey Borisov

Atrbazan.com         The Perfume Refrence

 

Stefania Squeglia didn't name her perfume enterprise with her family name. Instead, she made some strange word, Mendittorosa, with added "Odori d'Anima." Thus, she opposed all perfumes in the world which are made for bodies. And she presented atEsxence 2015 her new perfume …

 

 

Stefania Squeglia:

My new perfume baby is called Sogno Reale. In Italian this name means "Real Dream," but in the same time Reale means "Royal," so it could mean also "Royal Dream."

 

One night I dreamt about the smell of a mysterious sea urchin, lemon and animalic leather. And normally, when I wake up, I write down all my dreams, but that morning I awakened and immediately called Amelie (Amelie Bourjeois is my perfumer, one of the two perfumers I work with on Mendittorosa perfumes) to tell her: “Amelie, I had a dream—please, help me to realize it in perfume!” So we worked on it for one year and now we have this perfume, which is about the sea, the earth and the sun!

 

 

Serguey Borisov:
Your very unusual stoppers look like an object from a sci-fi film under H.R. Giger's art guidance.

 

Stefania Squeglia:
As for the packaging, I decided to make a stopper in the form of a sea urchin. It's actually sort of a shower of resin on a real urchin, it does not look like any other stopper, that's true. Its form also reminds me of a crown. I think that it's a crown of the King of the Unconscious.

 

 

All the stoppers are colored yellow, except some of them which are colored violet blue for a purpose. If you get the yellow stopper, just send it to me and I'll make your dream come true in some way, because I'll send you another of my perfumes of your choice.

 

 

Serguey Borisov: And the leather cord around the bottle?

 

Stefania Squeglia: The cord is wrapped around the bottle to keep a bronze mandala. I enclosed a sort of mandala into each box, trying to evoke your relations with the unconscious and to protect your dreams. Because our dreams are very powerful, but they are very fragile, too. This perfume is a sort of message: “Please, don't ever lose the connection with your dreams! Live your dreams and dream your life! Search and you will find …”

 

And by the way, the wooden box itself is also an original thing! It's a patented box that my sculptor friend created for moving his art pieces. I asked his permission to use it in a miniature form for my perfumes and get the right to make it. So all my perfumes are boxed as true pieces of art, with utmost care.

 

Serguey Borisov: And that's your best perfume?

 

Stefania Squeglia: Yes, I think so.

 

Serguey Borisov: So what are you going to do next?

 

Stefania Squeglia:
Nothing. Nothing yet to come. This perfume is not produced yet—we just presented it here for the first time. The most important for me was to say that my perfumes are my way to talk with people, and using my little life for sharing the possibilities in this time and this universe with other people. Sogno Reale is my biggest wish for people to keep the connection with dreaming. Actually, I am happy to say everything with perfume—I don`t need any other way to express myself. I can say everything with my perfumes.

 

Right after the words about sun, air and sea I got a déjà vu feeling that happened to shape into memory only after one and a half months. That's almost a phrase from a famous Serge Gainsbourg song. And the perfume feels so 60-70s, with only a slight modern touch of aquatics and incense.

“Sea, sex and sun”—that's an easy metaphor to create, to remember and to convey.

Lemons stand for the sun, as they look like small yellow suns in the green branches of a tree, and they are so bright and awesome. The sea breeze made of Helional touches so tenderly, as if there's a sea at a distance. The breeze brings some white flower intoxication—not some pronounced jasmine or rose, but some mysterious bouquet of white flowers. And again, the bouquet is not in front of you—it's just flower-scented wind from the tropical sea. By that stage, the perfume starts to invade into the Gainsbourg sex territory (or earth, from Stefania's dream) and that's the best part of Sogno Reale. You will find it when under the flower petals arise some dark leather suede, some woody rough patchouli, sweet styrax and animalics-laden amber. That warm but smoky resinous drydown should stand for some cowboy's old saddle, gloves, boots and other worn leather harness objects. I should admit it's quite an unusual composition for both cuir ambre and aquatic perfumes.

 

Even after all words about lemons and sea urchins, I believe that the true perfume shows itself in drydown. And that’s only way to classify the perfume—Sogno Reale is leathery amber, the comforting smell of worn-out boots and bags. It's the fragrance that should be sprayed in every cowboy shop. I believe that it will fit every cowboy saga when smell-a-cinemas will become our next entertainment fashion.

 

Let's listen to the perfumer's words about Sogno Reale, to know some details about the composition.

 

 

Amelie Bourjeois:
The aquatics usually make a very big impact in any perfumes, they tend to steal the show, taking all the attention. The aquatic materials are very powerful and long-lasting, that`s why. So I decided to make the aquatic part of Sogno Reale—Melonal and Helional—to appear very subdued, and it attached only to the lemon side to prolong it and make it very juicy. I also add a lot of Ginger into the top notes to make the citrus part more expressive and lasting.

 

I have to say that Stefania asked me to drop down the aquatic part of the fragrance, too—she said, there are too many oceanic perfumes in Italy particularly, and she doesn`t want to launch just another aquatic perfume on the market.

 

As for the other part of the fragrance, it's amber leather fragrance. It's made of Olibanum, burned Incense and Styrax, plus Suederal, the note of suede, and Hyraceum, African golden stone.

 

 

 

Mendittorosa Sogno Reale

Head: Lemon, Lemon leaves, Ginger, Bergamot, Marine accord;
Heart: Tuberose, Patchouli;
Base: Volcanic Olibanum, Hyraceum, Rum, Sandalwood, Styrax, Amber woods.

 

Serguey Borisov Serguey Borisov has been known in the Internet world of perfume under the nickname moon_fish for more than 10 years. Now he writes about perfumes for GQ.ru and Vogue.ru, and contributes on the subject for glossy magazines.