On the walls there are stories and memories from the past decade clear windows opened toward the future

A vision of a future

A journey into memory that was started in the past

A forecast into the new tomorrow 

In 1936 the foundation for the new classics began

Interview with

Andrea Bissoli Rubini

• Can you tell us of the background of Rubini?

RUBINI is an Italian story I dreamt and strongly wanted connecting heritage to the future.  To represent this memory stratification I needed a whole visual and olfactory concept able to express timeless beauty beyond fashion and trends. Therefore the search for a different language was fundamental to make this dream come true.

• Can you speak on your background and of those in your team?

Since 80 years my family runs one of the most renowned perfume shops in Italy, so I grew up among perfumes developing a great passion for this world. I am a musician (I play guitar in a rock band as a hobby) and to some extent, it was no surprise I was especially fascinated by notes, perfume composition, and its infinite possibilities. Ermano Picco is a renowned fragrance expert, perfume historian, and blogger of La Gardenia nell'Occhiello. We know each other for years and I admire his deep knowledge, so given my vision of perfumery, he seemed the right partner in crime for this project. Francesca Gotti is a product and visual designer behind different project between fashion and design. I was really impressed by her iconic packaging for nu_be perfume. It is something really different from everything around on the shelves and I thought her sensibility could really match with a different approach to perfumery. Cristiano Canali is a young creator working for IFF in Paris. I met Cristiano three years ago at the Osmothèque stand. He was still an ISIPCA student making a volunteer experience at the Osmothèque booth where vintage perfumes are presented to visitors. Since then we became friends thanks to the common passion. I chose Cristiano because he represents the future of Italian perfumery. I believe in his potential, I am sure he will go on creating great things and I wanted to be the first to work with him. Building the team took time but in the end, I was lucky enough to collaborate exactly with the people I considered fundamental to write a meaningful page in contemporary perfumery history.

• Have you always wanted to be in the fragrance industry?

Actually no. It was only after a couple of years I started working in the perfume store of my family I felt the desire of working in the fragrance industry. Surrounded by special perfumes like Guerlain, Chanel, Lutens and Frédéric Malle’s ones. I was charmed by the beauty of high perfumery of all times. In the last years though, I saw the market flooded with less and less interesting offerings. Perfumery became coarser and coarser lacking creativity and focusing only on profit.

• What is your inspiration?

To create Rubini fragrances I take inspiration from the historic perfumes I mostly admire that are bound together with my family memories. Complexity, balance, and creativity are key factors I strongly admire and I believe are what makes perfume become a “classic”. Rubini aims to create timeless perfumes beyond fashion. This is one more reason that made us debut with a single perfume and be sure we will stick with this, adding new creations at a time only when we’ll be totally satisfied with it.

Can you describe the process in creating the brand and the scent collection as a team and how the many roles that your team comes together?

The main idea was to create new classics, the beauty of the masterpieces from the past read through contemporary aesthetics to convey a future vision. So together with Francesca, we imagined a house, the Rubini house: on the walls, there are stories and memories from the past and windows are open to the horizon. This was also the starting point to create the visual design for the project. Meanwhile, I gave to Ermano as an inspiration a family history I cherish, the story of my granddad Pietro Rubini who opened in 1936 the first perfume shop in Verona. Ermano brilliantly layered olfactory impressions to picture a briefing perfectly reflecting the new vision of perfumery I was looking for. As long as IFF agreed to collaborate with us, we met Cristiano to discuss with him the briefing and he started working to it. During the next nine months, we worked non-stop in the loop with him, evaluating and discussing. The close cooperation of all the team was crucial to give the result a strong coherence, making it speak a new language inside out. That’s how fundamental was born.

Where is the brand based and does the history of the area effect the creations themes?

RUBINI is based in Mantua where I live and where my family perfume shop is. The creative process though was shared among Milan, Parma, and Paris while the first creation was inspired by a family history based in Verona.

Where do you see Rubini headed?
RUBINI wants to create new classics, to express stories and creativity careless of trends and market diktats, proposing this way a different, conscious approach to perfumery.

Where can we find your scents STOCKLIST?

We are currently present in the US and European market. The list of retailers will be available in our soon to be released new website.

Finally is there anything else that you would like to share?

Rubini is a newcomer and a game changer. We proudly and deliberately launched a single perfume in a market ruled by the trend of launching whole new collections. The road is long, but we keep going on our own way trying to give perfumery a new tomorrow.