The 5th Esxence 2013 was a great opportunity to meet the Italian Luxury Perfume house Xerjoff helmed by Sergio Momo, its founder and creative director. We had the pleasure of taking with Sergio, a perfectionist with an unrivaled passion for fine arts, quality, rarity, heritage in combination with innovation. We saw, smelled and experienced on the skin the the JTC and Sospiro collections. Xerjoff perfume house was established in 2004 and became a symbol of excellence and artistic refinement, bringing in the present the real values of the artistic perfumery.
Costin Frunza – 2LUXURY2: There are just few designers, few perfume houses which are still maintaining the tradition of casing the extremely precious perfumes ingredients in brilliant bottles regarded as work of arts. That was the perfume long time ago. And Xerjoff keep reviving that concept.
Sergio Momo – Xerjoff: “At Xerjoff we take inspiration from the old concept of perfumery – work of art presented in a work of art. Our main target is carry on creating perfume collections which a based on two main objectives. One it is “MADE IN ITALY” involving craftmanship, the creativity, and the history. The other one is the “NATURE” – the selection of the finest ingredients, the distillation techniques in order to carry on producing this combination of two works of art presented in one single piece.”
Costin Frunza – 2LUXURY2: You are addressing to connoisseurs who have a great deal of knowledge about the perfumes, the fine arts and history. I don’t see a lot of advertising regarding Xerjoff. You have, certainly, dedicated channels to promote, to let the information reach the perfumery enthusiasts and expert judges in matters of artistic perfumery…
Sergio Momo – Xerjoff: “It is true. In order to make sure that the communication on niche does not overlap the traditional communication the perfumery uses, sometimes it becomes quite difficult. Also, because different markets have different ways of talking about perfume, to introduce the concept, and spread the news and so on. So, it is indeed much slower than the traditional communication any other brands in any other sector could use.
Word of mouth is still a very interesting as a concept. Meeting people for us is more important than advertising as traditional concept. So, talking with journalists, talking with VIP clients, talking with clients, retailers and so on, I think is a way of getting more information about ourselves, first of all. Because it is through the confrontation that you get the best results, and it is an alternative way of communicating the brand. Obviously, is also important to have sometimes, more traditional way of communicating, the traditional advertising or web, TV or whatever… that’s also important. But at the end of the day, I still believe that what we do every day, touring around the world, being in the location is important. You get to know exactly the territory and the way the people perceive your brand, the critics as well, the positive and the negative things, and that let us build more collections and expertise.”
Costin Frunza – 2LUXURY2: You just launched “Xerjoff Join the Club” collection. Every JTC perfume sends the potential perfume lover to specific exciting and involving a great dose of passion activities. You just left the interpretation of the fragrances up to the customer.Can you describe for our audience this new Xerjoff – JTC line?
Sergio Momo – Xerjoff: “The idea behind “Join the Club“ is to create 10 “virtual” clubs. “Virtual”, because they don’t have an address, but in reality they exist worldwide. This is a selection of clubs, and clubs for us mean places where certain kind of people share their quality time together. Does not matter if it is a sport, if it is an opera, or if it is cultural. The important thing is to recreate an environment where people share the same passions. So, we “Join the club’. We don’t talk about ingredients, we don’t disclose what is inside our perfumes, we only want to bring back perfume from the emotional point of view …the olfactory memories, our own memories. We will never say this is oud, sandal and so on. This is how Xerjoff makes an interpretation of a sailing club, poetry club, fashion club, and so on. So it is our interpretation of an ambient for the finest clients.”
Costin Frunza – 2LUXURY2: Last year you launched The Sospiro collection. What are the novelties for this year, besides JTC?
Sergio Momo – Xerjoff: “We are launching another 6 fragrances of the Sospiro collection. From Xerjoff we are launching the Attars, the 6 oils attars which are in the search of traditional arab perume making, and this is more than enough for one year.
Costin Frunza – 2LUXURY2: As a professional, what do you think the whole niche industry will go? A lot of people claim that this will be tte new flag for what means perfume industry. not mass markets of the big brands, who have big budgets behind. There are a lot of voices who say that the niche fragrances will be in a few years will be an etalon for the customers.
“I think is very difficult to predict in any field how is gonna be the future…because of the present situation we are all living. The world is experiencing in different markets different experiences. This is interesting, because niche, like any other products is, theoretically, spreads on an international base. So, it is encounting some succes case stories, some less succes cases historie, depanding which market is facing.
Generally speaking, which is not easy, there is a huge interest in the niche perfumery and it is seen in exhibition like this [esxence 2013 milano], which are growing in terms of interest every year. Of course, there is a limit of numbers of brands which can be build in order to still maintain the niche perfumery concept. It’s also much of the numbers. It’s also a matter of quality and creativity. So, it is interesting that there are many brands which a born in the last few years and are making a contribution to the general portfolio of niche houses. But is also interesting how the big international corporations are trying to create niche selection in their portfolio, which shows, obviously, that there is a great economical interest behind it. If they are able to do it or not, the market will say. It’s not to me to say, but definitively, a lot of things are happening. The interest is high. We have to make sure that things keep going in the correct direction, which is creativity and quality – that what niche is all about. It don’t have to be polluted by any kind of commercial or marketing which are belonging to the other fields in terms of expression and make sure that we maintain the artistic approach to the sector.”
