Filippo Sorcinelli

Quick answers

Training and career

Filippo Sorcinelli was born in Mondolfo, in the Marche region, where he still lives. His personality resists a single definition: his interests range from art to design, from fashion to music, and art perfumery is, to his mind, the synthesis of all these fields, which is why he gave the brand his own name.

His training crosses art and music. He first earns the title of Maestro d'Arte and a diploma in Applied Arts in Fano, then a diploma in organ at the Gioachino Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro. The organ remains the constant, founding presence of his creative path.

In 2001, helped by his aunt and his sister, both tailors, he makes his first chasuble for a friend about to take his vows. From that impulse comes LAVS, an acronym for Laboratorio Atelier Vesti Sacre and the Latin word for praise: an atelier, in Romagna, devoted to the study and creation of garments and furnishings for the Catholic liturgy, which has become a reference in the field in Italy and abroad. Among other work, he has made liturgical vestments worn by Benedict XVI and for the opening Mass of Francis's pontificate, in 2013.

Perfumery came from there, almost naturally: to give his clients a complete sensory experience, he would scent the boxes of sacred vestments before shipping them. In 2013 he founded the eponymous brand with the first olfactory collection, UNUM, whose first perfume takes the atelier's own name, LAVS.

Approach and method

Filippo Sorcinelli's signature lies first in a way of thinking about perfume. As an organist, he does not reason in a pyramid of volatility (top, heart, base) but as a score: every composition reads in a subject, a counter-subject and a tail, the “harmonic evolution” the house publishes for each fragrance. It is a grammar of his own, one that places music at the center of his perfumery.

His perfumes spring from lived experiences, emotions and encounters: the smell of an organ set in motion in Rouen, the atmosphere of a basilica, a childhood memory, a work of art, a film. For him, perfumes are “sensory contaminations,” emotions that take shape in the essence and in the materiality of the bottle, through a constant dialogue of the five senses.

The sacred and the liturgical run through the whole, without heavy devotion: incense, wax, stone, the leather of bindings, but also urban smoke or the cream of an ice-cream cone. This breadth, from the gravest (Ambrosivs, LAVS) to the most playful (Panna Sotto!), makes the singularity of an author's house that belongs to no established school.

“Perfumes are sensory contaminations, emotions that take shape in the essence and in the materiality of the bottle.”Filippo Sorcinelli

Activities

Filippo Sorcinelli pursues several activities at once. The LAVS atelier still designs liturgical garments and furnishings; it is, in fact, the origin and the bedrock. The perfume house, for its part, unfolds many collections: UNUM, Memento (Extrait de Sacristie), Atmosphere d'emotion, Délire de Voyage, X SÉ, SuperFluo?, the home line scented home, and Extrait de Musique, reborn in 2026 at Esxence.

In 2022, he opened container_zerozero, his first mono-brand store, in the heart of Rome, a stone's throw from the Vatican. Less than a year later, in spring 2023, container_zerouno opened in Milan, on via Moscova. Each city has its exclusive: Tu es Petrus in Rome, Ambrosivs in Milan.

Music remains at the heart of his work. For the Extrait de Musique collection, he recorded seven organ improvisations on a vinyl record, each dedicated to one fragrance, extending the idea of a perfume born of the organ and of sacred space.

Signature perfumes

Here are the Osmetheca entries devoted to Filippo Sorcinelli's perfumes, with their year, collection and olfactory family. All the compositions are signed by the founder himself, the house crediting no third-party technical perfumer.

Olfactory signature

Filippo Sorcinelli's perfumery is recognized by its gravity and its coherence. Incense is its central material, ranging from the most resinous and warm (LAVS) to the most smoky and aromatic (Ambrosivs), by way of gothic leather (Opus 1144). Around this axis gravitate vanillic orientals (Tu es Petrus), cold woodies (Symphonie-Passion) and, more rarely, playful registers (Panna Sotto!).

The whole is most often offered as an extrait de parfum, in high concentrations and with long staying power, unisex. It is a perfumery of presence and narrative, in which each bottle tells of a place, an emotion or an encounter, and in which the very form of the object extends the theme.

Key characteristics

Common questions

See also