Olfactive Studio was founded in Paris in 2011 by Céline Verleure, who had already spent two decades shaping fragrances at Kenzo and exploring the creative frontiers of perfumery. The idea for the brand came through an unusual route: Verleure launched a blog titled “The fragrance that doesn’t (yet) exist”, inviting a global audience to share ideas and participate in the birth of a perfume. What began as an open experiment quickly evolved into a new way of conceiving fragrance, one that positioned dialogue and collaboration at its core.
From the very beginning, Verleure’s vision was to fuse contemporary photography with perfumery. Each Olfactive Studio fragrance begins with a photograph, chosen for its ability to capture an atmosphere or a moment. This image becomes the brief for a perfumer, who translates the visual language into scent. The process creates perfumes that feel like snapshots of mood and memory, blurring the line between two sensory worlds.
The first trilogy, Autoportrait, Still Life, and Chambre Noire, introduced the brand’s identity: intuitive, artistic, and free from traditional boundaries of gender or category. Guided by the principle that perfume should have “a soul, not a gender,” Olfactive Studio built a reputation for its thoughtful balance of emotional resonance and technical precision.
Over time, the house has expanded its collections, always maintaining its dialogue between image and aroma. Each release reflects Verleure’s guiding belief that fragrance is not just an adornment but an art form, capable of translating visual inspiration into something intimate and wearable.
