ACCA KAPPA: From Brush Making in 1869 to Perfume, the World Expanded by Fourth-Generation Elisa

Simple design, high-quality manufacturing, natural materials.
Elisa Gera, fourth generation of Acca Kappa, 2006

ACCA KAPPA began with brush making in Treviso, Italy, in 1869. From tools for grooming hair to products for washing skin and hair, and then to perfume. Elisa Gera, the fourth generation, expanded the business passed down through her family into a world supporting daily grooming rituals.

At that turning point were the voices of overseas customers and a scent encountered while traveling. Following the birth of White Moss reveals how a long-established brand ventured into new expressions of fragrance.

Essential Information
The Founder and the Brand’s Origins
The Brand’s Commitments
Incidentally…
References

Essential Information

Founded: 1869
Founder: Hermann Krüll
Place of origin: Treviso, Veneto, Italy
Fourth generation: Elisa Gera-Krüll
Official websites: ACCA KAPPA / Official Japanese website

The Founder and the Brand’s Origins

1869: A Family Business Beginning with Brush Making

Founder Hermann Krüll began his career in Venice as a young merchant dealing in bristles for brushes and entered a partnership in a brush factory on the outskirts of Treviso. By 1899, he had acquired all the company’s shares, and in 1905 it published its first catalog, listing twenty-five models.

The name Acca Kappa derives from the Italian pronunciation of the founder’s initials H and K, “acca” and “kappa.” Named after a person, the company experienced expropriation and occupation of its factory during the two world wars, and the family also suffered wartime deaths. Even so, the business passed through the generations to Hermann’s great-granddaughter Elisa.

Brush making remained fundamental to the brand even after perfume was added. Acca Kappa created brushes using silver and ebony and expanded into products meeting professional hairstylists’ needs and collections that also considered timber sourcing. Its fragrance world was built on a business that continued making tools suited to changing times and uses.

Studying in Boston and Working at an Advertising Agency in Paris

Elisa studied communication and journalism at Boston University. She went to the United States to gain an international perspective. Valuing experience outside both the family company and her own country, she also brought what she learned about marketing back to the family business.

I strongly wanted to gain work experience outside Italy.
Elisa Gera, 2006

After university, she worked for a year at the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in Paris. Although she had wanted to become a journalist, she felt a responsibility to the family business and joined Acca Kappa. Her work combined preserving inherited products with exploring new possibilities from the perspective she had acquired abroad.

American Customers’ Requests: A Turning Point toward Body Care

The United States was the first export market Elisa chose. There, customers asked her for body-care products.

And then they began asking me about body-care products.
Elisa Gera, 2011

Those voices prompted the diversification of the range: in addition to brushes for combing hair, products for caring for skin and hair. Expansion into perfume also belonged to this line of work, making things for personal grooming. White Moss now extends beyond perfume into cleansing, moisturizing, and hair-care products. It connects one fragrance with different everyday actions.

A Scent Encountered in Cyprus Becomes White Moss

The inspiration for White Moss lies in a scent Elisa encountered while visiting Cyprus. What captivated her during the trip was a Mediterranean scent blending lavender and juniper. On returning to Treviso, she gathered chemists and worked to re-create that unforgettable smell.

The resulting White Moss was also the fragrance Elisa said represented her best. Turning requests from overseas customers into an expanded range and making travel memories into a scent of their own: what joined the history of brushes was the fourth generation’s own experience.

The Brand’s Commitments

Naming White Moss and the Scent of Lavender and Juniper

White Moss is not something that actually exists in nature. The name is a fantasy.
Elisa Gera, 2011

Although White Moss sounds like the name of a plant, it is an image created by Elisa and her team. The current eau de parfum layers lavender and woody scents over the brightness of lemon, bergamot, and juniper, supported by white musk and an amber accord. An accord is a coherent scent constructed from several fragrance materials.

Retaining the two plants that inspired her on the trip, it combines citrus and musk to form a complete perfume. The key to understanding White Moss lies less in imagining a particular moss from its name than in how juniper and lavender connect with brightness and a soft lingering trail.

Choosing Brush Materials and Keeping Perfume Bottle Design Simple

For its brushes, the Natura collection, introduced in the early 2000s, adopted FSC-certified wood from responsibly managed forests. Consideration for materials and processing is connected to the quality of tools held and used by hand.

For containers, meanwhile, Elisa says she favors clean, simple design. The current White Moss eau de parfum also uses a restrained combination of clear glass, a silver-colored cap, and a black label. Instead of illustrating a story on the container, it places the brand and fragrance names so that they are easy to read. The principle of simple design is also expressed in the presentation of perfume.

Local Food Culture Expressed in Dolce Treviso

Dolce Treviso turns the culinary culture of the brand’s historic home, Treviso, into scent. Its subject is tiramisu. It depicts the local city through the gourmand realm, meaning sweet fragrances suggestive of food.

Coffee beans, cacao, and a tiramisu accord are layered with the warmth of vanilla and benzoin. Rather than emphasizing coffee alone, the composition expands into the dessert as a whole, including its cream, and into its lingering impression. Not only gardens filled with plant scents but also a city’s dining tables can become subjects for perfume. From a different angle than White Moss, it transfers experiences of a familiar place into fragrance.

Incidentally…

Elisa enjoys writing and used to write fiction. In 2006, she said she no longer had time for it. Having studied journalism and worked at an advertising agency, this fourth-generation figure has both the role of a business leader carrying on the family’s manufacturing and a familiarity with creating stories in words.