Filippo Sorcinelli

Filippo Sorcinelli is an Italian niche fragrance house built around its namesake founder, an organist, painter, photographer and designer of sacred vestments. Based in Mondolfo, in the Province of Pesaro and Urbino, the company frames perfume as one strand of a wider artistic practice, describing itself as a lifestyle brand and "the result of a contamination between the arts" [1]. Its perfumes are released chiefly under the UNUM collection, whose first scent, LAVS, launched in 2014 [4].

The house grew directly out of Sorcinelli's earlier work dressing the Catholic clergy. Before any perfume existed, he ran an atelier that made liturgical garments, and the habit of scenting those finished vestments eventually became a fragrance line in its own right [5]. The brand remains active, with an online shop and a current release promoted on its homepage.

Filippo Sorcinelli was born on 1 July 1975 in Mondolfo, into a family of weavers and seamstresses. He became a cathedral organist at the age of thirteen, performing in Fano, Rimini and San Benedetto del Tronto, and went on to study at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome and historical weaving at the Museo del Tessuto in Prato. Wikipedia lists his occupations as designer, artist, perfumer, organist, painter and photographer [4].

In 2001 he founded the atelier LAVS — an acronym for Laboratorio Atelier Vesti Sacre that also nods to the Latin word for praise — to create sacred vestments for the Catholic Church. The studio drew commissions from the office responsible for papal liturgical celebrations: from 2007 Sorcinelli designed garments for Pope Benedict XVI, producing more than fifty pieces, and in 2013 he made the cream, white and gold vestment Pope Francis wore at his first papal mass [4].

The fragrance project began as an extension of the atelier's practice of perfuming vestments. According to the fragrance critic blog Kafkaesque, UNUM developed from this scenting of finished garments, starting with a room spray built on "Frankincense, Myrrh and Juniper Berries on a noble base note of Balms, Oriental Resins and Precious Woods," from which the LAVS perfume later evolved [5].

The founding year of the perfume line carries a small ambiguity. The company's own about page and Wikipedia both date the first niche perfume, LAVS, to 2014, when it opened the olfactory project [4]. Wikipedia also notes 2013 as the year the UNUM project was conceptually co-founded, alongside the Pope Francis commission [4]. The 2001 LAVS vestment atelier is a separate, non-fragrance venture and predates both.

Later milestones recognise the vestment work rather than the perfumes: the Diocesan Museum of Milan held an exhibition of Sorcinelli's work in 2018, and in 2021 he received the Art and Liturgy Prize from the Pontifical Liturgical Institute.

The brand is operated by Alter duo s.r.l., registered at via Cavour 33 in Mondolfo, Italy [2]. Manufacturing is based in Italy. No acquisitions or sister brands are recorded in the available sources.

Sorcinelli positions the house as an artist-perfumer project in which fragrance, music, painting and vestment-making feed into one another. The company says it pursues "a constant and bold search for Beauty" across art, events, fashion and design [1]. The UNUM line is presented in explicitly spiritual terms; its concept page states, "UNUM speaks of Spirit. Not just spirituality," and describes the work as "olfactory tailoring open to every artistic contamination" [3].

Rather than conventional perfumery briefs, the fragrances are tied to literary, musical and religious narratives. Individual scents reference subjects ranging from the Assumption and Gothic architecture to David Lynch's Twin Peaks and the founder's own paintings. The brand is sold as a luxury niche line through its own site and a range of European niche-perfume retailers.

The UNUM collection is the brand's core and the origin of its catalogue. Its signature scent, LAVS, is described by the company as "the incense of incenses" and the collection's original bestseller [3]. Other frequently cited fragrances include Nero Viola, which interprets the Assumption through the idea of an absent rose; Opus 1144, named for the foundation stone of the Saint-Denis basilica and evoking Gothic architecture; and Reliqvia and Lascia ch'io pianga, among those singled out in critic interviews as the line's most loved.

The compositions lean on resinous and ecclesiastical materials — frankincense, myrrh and incense alongside rose, iris, labdanum and sandalwood [5]. Beyond perfume, the house has extended into scented home products, body creams, shower gels and car fragrances, consistent with its self-description as a lifestyle brand rather than a perfumer alone.

Sorcinelli's work has been documented mainly through the fragrance press and the liturgical art world. The niche-fragrance critics at Kafkaesque and Basenotes both published interviews with him in 2015, and the music and culture publication Tone Glow ran a feature interview in 2017 [5]. In 2021 he received the Art and Liturgy Prize from the Pontifical Liturgical Institute [4].

The brand is active. Its e-commerce site is operating, with a current release — "The New Extrait de Musique" — promoted on the homepage alongside a vinyl giveaway of organ improvisations, and its perfumes are distributed through several European niche-perfume retailers.