We speak with Jeroen Oude Sogtoen of Mona di Orio Parfums [News from Pitti]

It was one of Monas first studies with Edmond Roudnitska, he picked that particular rose that was planted outside of his office and said study this. He told her 'you can never reproduce nature, if you could, you would be God, but you can try'.


She worked on it for years, but we never had an immediate need to use it. We werent thinking of introducing a rose because we were working on Patchouli and also on Tonka and lots of other things before she died.

To be honest we were so afraid of the rose its so easy to get it wrong, to make it old fashioned or boring almost, but last year she said Im ready. Its interesting because now I find that Rose is everywhere now, lots of people are bring out rose perfumes, its as if theres a romanticism everywhere.

Of course lots of men are also wearing Etoile de Hollande. Theres nothing wrong with that. In the Middle East men put rose oil on their skins.

I was travelling in the Mediterranean on a beautifully made yatch one summer, when Mona was still alive, and I was so inspired by capturing the feeling of the wind and the water, that sensation. I called her and said that I wanted to capture that. But how do you do it?

We have a new perfume coming out but I dont know how to describe it. I hate the term aquatic its very airy, open and refreshing though. Its got juniper berries, pepper. Its really a cologne because Mona very much wanted to add a cologne to the collection. It should be available early next year, perhaps in spring.

We are going to, but we want to get it right. As an artist you grow and learn, so when you look back at something you can make small changes. She polished three of them already, only very small changes, just like polishing something. In others, like Jabu the concentration was quite high, its better to do it a little bit lower. So we are only tweaking a little bit.

For these I am going to use different bottles. It will be more expensive but its for those who want it and really appreciate it.

Its called Passion and Im thinking about releasing it. She made it about five or six years ago, its got violet in it and also tobacco and leather we went to a very old tobacco shop in Amsterdam that I go to, where they store the tobacco in old wooden pots. We took the different tobaccos away with us and made a blend actually. There are no plans yet though.

Yes, we have just introduced a new travel set: you get 3x10ml bottles. They start at 85 and go up to 195 for the Oud - its a much more expensive material to work with.