News release

COLLECTION EXHIBITION

Casati emerges from the vision of Elena Paolini, patron and discerning collector of minds and talents, who gathers around the project a constellation of perfumers and creative figures invited to contribute to a shared imaginative universe. Her approach to perfumery is distinctly curatorial: each fragrance becomes part of a broader cultural project, conceived as a narrative in continuous transformation. Here, scent assumes the role of an invisible archive, capable of preserving places, atmospheres, and presences that endure through olfaction.

Casati unveils its second line of fragrances, developed in collaboration with artistic perfumer Christopher Chong, whose creations are widely regarded as works of art within contemporary perfumery. From the convergence of these two visions arises Collection Exhibition, a project shaped by research and experimentation, in dialogue with art and the present moment. The collection is devoted to places that appear to possess a singular vocation, spaces where creativity finds fertile ground and where artists and exceptional minds have, over time, shaped cultural and imaginative environments destined to leave a lasting imprint. Residences, ateliers, and salons become sites of creation and transformation, stages upon which art and life intersect.

Certain dwellings traverse centuries, becoming spaces of continuous creation, where architecture and interiors preserve visions, encounters, and gestures destined to endure. Collection Exhibition takes form as a sensory interpretation of the energy that inhabits these imaginative dimensions, emblematic of refinement and cultural acuity.

The first chapter unfolds in Venice, a city that seems to exist in a suspended dimension, where water mirrors architecture and time acquires a different density. Within the palazzi overlooking the Grand Canal, lives and creative freedoms have intertwined, transforming these interiors into spaces of creation and representation. Venice thus becomes the inaugural setting of Collection Exhibition, a place where art and life converge, and where each room retains the resonance of presences that continue to echo through time.

From these residences, and from the histories that have passed through them, emerge female figures who transformed their existence into a form of representation, becoming the muses of these fragrances. Cultivated, free, and often eccentric, they fashioned their lives as aesthetic and cultural gestures, inhabiting these spaces as private stages and shaping worlds and visions around themselves. Within this dialogue between past and present, they persist as figures within a narrative that continues to renew itself.

The curtain remains open.

PRIMO PIANO — VENEZIA

Primo Piano, the inaugural fragrance of Collection Exhibition, arises from the remarkable sensibility of perfumer Karine Vinchon-Spehner, whose work transforms vision and material into an unmistakable olfactory signature. The composition evokes a femininity that is enveloping, poised, and magnetic, conceived as an intense, almost theatrical presence.The extrait de parfum is housed within a alabaster white glass flacon, where the lion, emblem of Casati, assumes a golden tone, underscoring the symbolic dimension of a fragrance that unfolds like a stage set and fills the space with a vivid and imaginative presence.

At its core lies a bold tuberose from Grasse, at once carnal and hypnotic, softened by a milky texture and traversed by a green, serpentine tension. The base deepens into darker, more instinctive territories, where animalic notes, tobacco, myrrh, and incense compose a trail that is at once profound, elegant, and magnetic. What emerges is an opulent and theatrical fragrance, capable of evoking female figures who are free, sophisticated, and resolutely unconventional—presences that pass through rooms and palazzi, leaving behind an indelible trace.

Olfactory family: Oriental Floral
Top notes: Pink Pepper, Ambrette, Poison Accord
Heart notes: Grasse Tuberose, Ylang Ylang, Latex, Leather
Base notes: Tobacco, Myrrh, Animalic Notes, Cedarwood, Incense

ABOUT ELENA PAOLINI

Elena Paolini, jurist and scholar at the University of Bologna, has shaped a personal trajectory in which law intersects with art and culture. A pupil of Francesco Galgano, among the most eminent jurists of the twentieth century and himself a painter, she inherits a vision in which legal rigour and artistic creation belong to the same gesture: to interpret is always to give form to what did not previously exist.

From this perspective emerges Casati, a project in which Elena Paolini assumes the role of patron and curator, bringing together perfumers and creative figures as a collector of minds and talents. Fragrance thus becomes part of a wider cultural undertaking, shaped through dialogue and shared vision.

The name Casati evokes the visionary figure of marquise Luisa Casati, who described herself as “a living work of art” , and reflects an understanding of creation as the construction of an imaginary and a form of self-representation. Within this framework, to cultivate art is to create the conditions for creativity to exist and to transform over time.

ABOUT CHRISTOPHER CHONG

Christopher Chong stands among the most influential and visionary figures in contemporary artistic perfumery. With an international background and a refined cultural sensibility, he has redefined the role of the creative director in fragrance, elevating perfume into a fully-fledged narrative language. During his tenure at Amouage, he brought the maison to international prominence, creating iconic compositions and introducing an approach that is at once deeply artistic and conceptual. His work is distinguished by its ability to interweave art, memory, literature, and identity, giving rise to creations that transcend the object to become sensory and cultural experiences. Today, Christopher Chong is widely regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of perfumery as an art form, capable of transforming each fragrance into a living and profoundly evocative narrative.

ABOUT KARINE VINCHONSPEHNER

Karine Vinchon-Spehner is a French perfumer and one of the most refined voices in contemporary perfumery. Trained within the great tradition of the French school, she has developed a distinctive language grounded in balance, luminosity, and precision in olfactory construction.

Her creations are characterised by an elegant and sensitive compositional approach, capable of enhancing raw materials with exceptional finesse and transforming fragrance into an emotional experience. Her practice unites technical rigour with artistic intuition, giving rise to compositions that articulate stories through scented matter. Within the international landscape, Karine Vinchon-Spehner is recognised for her ability to translate the heritage of French perfumery into a contemporary idiom, where harmony, character, and sensory depth converge in a singular olfactory signature.

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Tenuta Casati unveils its new fragrance collection at Esxence 2025: perfume extracts crafted in seven unisex formulations with sophisticated sillage, expressed through imagery and sensory metaphors.

Moving beyond the narrative tied to the personality of a single creator, Casati embraces a “ribbon of dreams” that weaves through nature and art in search of “cultivated” essences, drawing inspiration from the elevated spirit of collective consciousness. Like a Renaissance patron, each creation celebrates the spirit of Italian craftsmanship, seeking stories of authenticity.

The Maison, already known for its iconic olive oil wax cameos to be melted into fine Italian-made majolica, stands among centuries-old olive trees in former Venetian Italy.

Made in Italy for life style, Casati stands out for its visionary approach in which, craftsmanship blends with contemporary art.

This poetic spirit of ‘cultivating art’ is reflected in the brand's identity and style profile, promoting a new green Renaissance.

Crowning this vision, the Casati Prize annually honors emerging artistic talents, bringing to life unique works—precious limited-edition bottles that encapsulate the soul of the essences, where tradition, innovation, and Italian artistry converge in a celebration of timeless beauty.

Maison Casati, in collaboration with GDA - Associazione Italiana per l'Arte, renews its patronage vocation, elevating contemporary Italian art by supporting talents that shape matter and give life to form. This commitment has its roots in the tradition of Renaissance collecting, when the great noble families made art a banner of identity, a celebration of beauty and human ingenuity.

The beating heart of this initiative is located on the Casati Estate, a locus amoenus nestled among centuries-old olive trees, suspended between the land and the sea, where light refracts off the silvery foliage and time seems to stand still. Here, in a context full of suggestion and memory, each year the competition - the result of the synergy between the Association, Maison Casati and selected partners - unveils a new Ampolla d'Artista, a symbol of creativity and innovation that complements the Tenuta's EVO oil, enhancing its excellence.

For the fourth edition of the Casati Prize, Tamara Repetto (Genoa, 1973), an artist with a refined sensibility and a multifaceted path, has been chosen. She ranges between olfactory installations, sculpture and design, investigating the relationship between matter, the senses and the relationship between man and nature. Her work, ‘Undici’, feeds on this interaction, drawing inspiration from the ancient pomander, a secret treasure chest of fragrances, guarded over the centuries by courts and aristocracies to protect the body and spirit with precious essences such as ambergris and musk.

The cap of the ampoule, the true aesthetic and conceptual fulcrum of the work, recalls the delicate structure of the morille, an evocative French term for morel, a fruit of the earth with a sinuous and archaic shape, a symbol of rebirth and transformation. This morphology, reproduced in shiny yellow bronze, recalls the golden hues of ripe olives, while its perforated surface reveals the essence it contains, in a sensory game that stimulates sight, touch and smell.

Oil, a primordial and sacred element, dialogues with the perfumed cap, creating a synaesthetic experience in which art, nature and fragrance intertwine in a refined and visionary unicum.

Further embellishing this creation is the fragrance No. 11 Casati perceptible inside the cap with a sweet, woody accord, an intoxicating combination celebrating the sacred nectar. This fragrance is evocative of the number 11, an esoteric symbol linked to creative energy, intuition, sensitivity, a portal for the fulfilment of desires, as well as the artist's date of birth.

Thanks to the poetics of Tamara Repetto, this new Casati Artist's Ampoule becomes not only the custodian of sensory excellence, but a work that embodies the very concept of sensory alchemy, where aesthetics, matter and symbolism come together in a creation destined to leave a mark on the memory and imagination.