Can a Perfume Capture the Soul of a City? Dr. Vranjes Firenze Shows How
The Essence of Dr. Vranjes Firenze: Florence Bottled Into Emotion
What if a perfume could let you experience Florence itself? This is the essence of Dr. Vranjes Firenze, where fragrance becomes memory, emotion, and story. Each scent is crafted to capture the rhythm of the Italian city, from the crisp morning air to the golden glow of midnight. More than just perfume, it’s a journey through streets, gardens, and timeless Florentine rituals—an olfactory experience that rises above trends and labels.
Fashion Business student Gili Shvarzman experienced this philosophy firsthand during a workshop at Istituto Marangoni London, discovering how Dr. Vranjes Firenze turns raw materials into emotions and moments into bottles of pure sensory storytelling.
A workshop exploring the new Dr. Vranjes Firenze Eau de Parfum collection, where students discover how Italian craftsmanship transforms raw materials into emotional, Florence-inspired fragrances
From a Tiny Florentine Lab to an Iconic Global Perfume House
For over four decades, Dr. Vranjes Firenze has woven stories through fragrance, distilling the very essence of Florentine artistry.
It all began in 1983, when Dr Paolo Vranjes founded the Antica Officina del Farmacista, a small laboratory in the heart of Florence, dedicated to crafting scents that awaken memories and emotions. In 1999, Rosso Nobile—an homage to Tuscany’s finest wines—became an instant classic, propelling the brand onto the international stage.
The following years saw the brand broadening its vision, turning homes into fragrant havens with meticulously crafted candles and catalytic lamps—all proudly Made in Florence. By 2008, the company had evolved, adopting the name Dr. Vranjes Firenze and unveiling its iconic octagonal bottle, inspired by the Duomo’s dome—a tribute to its rich heritage and artisanal craftsmanship.
The 2022 launch of the Eau de Parfum collection marked a new chapter, transforming everyday moments into immersive olfactory experiences. Today, as part of the L’OCCITANE Group in 2024, Dr. Vranjes Firenze continues to embody elegance, innovation, and sustainability—offering a luminous sensory journey that invites the world to experience the soul of Florence, one scent at a time.
The Dr. Vranjes Firenze Discovery Kit showcases all eight “Firenze in Translation” scents, offering a complete sensory journey through a Florentine day, from morning light to midnight mystery.
A Timeless, Unisex Vision: How Dr. Vranjes Firenze Redefines Perfume
Known for their classical yet contemporary identity, and for fragrances designed to be ageless, gender-free, and unmistakably Italian, Dr. Vranjes Firenze embodies perfume as a lived experience rather than merely a product. What followed was a slow, sensory stroll through the Renaissance capital, captured in a bottle.
Dr. Vranjes Firenze’s perfumer, Éléonore Beurnier—known as the “nose”—guided us through an olfactory exploration of Florence itself: its mornings, rituals, colours, and signature Italian ease. She revealed the emotional architecture behind each scent, built not around gender categories or trend-driven accords, but around moments of pure emotion. “Because through scent,” she said, “you can experience Firenze in every sense.”
Colour-coded scent cards from the “Firenze in Translation” collection reveal the poetic Italian storytelling behind each fragrance, inspired by distinct moments of a day in Florence.
Firenze in Translation: Eight Scents, One Day in Florence
The sensorial experience unfolded like a day in Florence with the new “Firenze in Translation” collection, each of the eight Eau de Parfum fragrances representing a distinct moment of the day. The eight names—Mattutino, Meriggiare, Capogiro, Petaloso, Intrigo, Tintinnio, Chiaroscuro, and Nottetempo—read like chapters of a short story, evoking a time of day, atmosphere, or mood rather than serving as literal lists of notes.
Each name carries rich cultural and poetic associations in Italian, allowing Dr. Vranjes Firenze to encode visual, spatial, and emotional imagery in a single word. For example, Mattutino, meaning “morning,” opened the experience: a comforting, introspective scent inspired by waking after a restful night. Hints of spice make it quiet, intimate, almost shy. For the late afternoon, Tintinnio evokes the clinking of glasses during aperitivo hour: juicy, amber-musky, and imbued with the full spirit of Italian “Dolce Vita.”
Through this narrative, the brand elevates the olfactory experience, weaving stories and channelling emotions that extend far beyond geographical boundaries.
The eight Dr. Vranjes Firenze Eau de Parfum miniatures—Mattutino to Nottetempo—offer a curated exploration of Florence's emotions, crafted with refined ingredients and signature Italian artistry.
When Words Become Scent: The Art of Italian Olfactory Storytelling
Dr. Vranjes Firenze’s communication strategy centred on naming perfumes in Italian, as the collection’s narrative sought to “transform emotions and sensations into a universal olfactory language.”
As we discovered, the in-house perfumer aims to turn “words into emotions, and emotions into scent.” Éléonore Beurnier, perfumer at Dr. Vranjes Firenze, explained: “Florence speaks through art, light, flavour and fragrance, and with this collection, we invited the world to listen,”—reinforcing the idea of synaesthetic, multi-sensory storytelling.
This language reflects the brand’s broader discourse on capturing memories and atmospheres, making the new “Firenze in Translation” collection feel like a focused narrative chapter within an ongoing story about Florence and its emotions.
Florence, we learned, is a small city cradled by nature, where springtime brings the hypnotic bloom of linden trees. For instance, the perfume Meriggiare evokes the languid stillness of midday. This fragrance captures that leafy freshness, softened with orange blossom—an ode to the grounded, unhurried rhythm of Tuscan life. For a fleeting moment, we left cold, wintry London for the warmth of an Italian summer.
In short, Dr. Vranjes Firenze’s latest collection positions the range as a bridge between local culture and a global audience: while the language may be untranslatable, the emotions become legible through perfume, reinforcing the “translation” metaphor at the heart of the campaign.
Dr. Vranjes Firenze experts presenting Meriggiare, a scent capturing the stillness of Italian summer afternoons, blending airy freshness with poetic storytelling rooted in Florentine culture.
Tradition Meets Innovation: How Dr. Vranjes Firenze Speaks to the World
We learned how the brand’s content frames the collection as a balance between tradition and innovation: traditional elements include references to the city of Florence, artisanal production, and literary language, while innovation emerges through the idea of “unprecedented, unisex and persistent scents” that reinterpret these themes for today’s global consumer.
Capogiro, for example, transported us towards the iconic cypress trees of the Tuscan countryside. Drier and woodier, with musky undertones, it reflects Italy’s cultural affinity for musky scents—a preference that extends even to deodorants and laundry detergents, and one worth noting when conducting consumer research.
By emphasising refined raw materials, long-lasting formulas and a unisex positioning, “Firenze in Translation” by Dr. Vranjes Firenze bridges heritage with current niche-fragrance codes—quality, gender fluidity, and storytelling—strengthening its appeal within the premium segment.
Among the scents, Petaloso draws inspiration from the Giardino delle Rose. Rather than creating a predictable floral, the perfumer crafted a “rose marmalade” effect: sweet, playful, almost edible. Leather notes and darker materials add tension, creating the impression of a rose cocktail with attitude. Meanwhile, Intrigo, the boldest of the family—bold, smoky, leathery—is a direct tribute to Florence’s leather workshops, whose scent is part of the city’s DNA. Rose, incense and oud combine to form something unapologetically striking, designed for those who like to be noticed before they even enter the room.
A City You Can Smell: Experiencing Florence Through Fragrance
What set the workshop apart wasn’t just the storytelling, but the realisation that fragrance itself can be a form of narrative—less about gender or trends, and more about memory, mood and place. Dr. Vranjes Firenze doesn’t simply bottle notes; it bottles moments. And for a few hours, Florence felt close enough to touch.