ELLA K

Basic Information

Founded: 2017
Founder: Sonia Constant
Official website: English-language official website (Official Japanese distributor)

As a perfumer, I have always thought of my creations as a way to speak to other people’s subconscious. I awaken their curiosity and invite them on a journey. After the journey, they tell their own stories without my help. They share my memories through scent and make discoveries of their own. My creations are places where everyone can roam freely, true destinations. I do not set the rules. I merely make suggestions.

Sonia Constant

Founding History

In 2017, seemingly following in the footsteps of Patricia de Nicolaï and Olivia Giacobetti, popular perfumer Sonia Constant founded ELLA K with her partner Olivier Galliardi.

After graduating from the perfume school ISIPCA, Sonia went straight on to build her career at Givaudan. She loves traveling and always carries a Leica camera and a Moleskine notebook, recording fleeting scenes and her feelings so that she will not forget them. These personal experiences inspire the perfumes she creates. ELLA K’s scents are born from her and Olivier’s travels, poetry, and imagination.

Many women inspired the creation of ELLA K, particularly four female explorers active around the turn of the twentieth century: Ella Maillart, the Swiss adventurer and photographer born in 1903; Karen Blixen, the Danish writer of Gothic fiction born in 1885; Alexandra David-Néel, the adventurer and Buddhist born in 1868; and Amelia Earhart, the American aviator born in 1897. They had a profound influence on Sonia. ELLA K is an imaginary heroine born of these women and Sonia’s own experiences of travel.
The letter K comes from Sonia’s grandfather’s name. To her, he was brave, strong-minded, and passionate, and taught her many values.

Ella K is a timeless muse and a universal artist. She lives her life as if she were the author of a novel. Open to infinite possibilities, she nevertheless knows what she wants.

She is one of those beautiful souls who love other people and places, experience and the unknown. She has no preconceptions or fears, and never holds back. Her suitcase is always with her, ready for a new adventure.

Her belief in life enables her to appreciate the true worth of her surroundings, the people, and the places that can touch her heart. Even when it is not obvious, she is always doing something, moving between reflection, inspiration, and creation. Her stimulus comes from the people she meets, the bonds she forms, and her discoveries.

She trusts her desires, intuitions, impulses, and passions. Following in the footsteps of her celebrated explorer sisters, Ella K travels the world in search of beauty, unusual landscapes, and raw emotion. Epupa, Florence, Khao Sok, Pushkar, Ha Long, Altai, Sagano… At every destination, she finds enchantment, a feast for the senses, an olfactory memory, a poem of love.

Sonia Constant

ELLA K’s logo combines the letter K with a dragonfly, a symbol of courage and victory in the Land of the Rising Sun, as a tribute to Japan.

The bottle design is influenced by the Art Deco style of the 1920s and 1930s. Waltersperger, founded in 1916 and a maker of bottles for Tom Ford, Jean Paul Gaultier’s Le Male, and Yves Saint Laurent’s Libre, among others, makes the bottles by hand at its Normandy factory. Their engraving is done by Stern, founded in 1836.

Seeking highly skilled artisans for its visual identity, the brand commissioned Kyoto-born illustrator Senjiro Nakata. Influenced by ukiyo-e and nishiki-e prints of the Edo and Meiji periods, Nakata apparently uses traditional ukiyo-e techniques to create illustrations for all the fragrances and their destinations. Each scent’s illustration appears on the case housing its bottle.
The poems printed inside the cases are written by a friend of Sonia’s.

The Paris boutique was designed by Patrick Norguet, who has also designed the In the Pocket watch for Hermès and lounge chairs for Cassina.

The Perfume Collection

ELLA K’s perfumes begin with landscapes encountered by Sonia Constant on her travels and the emotions she felt there: Kyoto’s bamboo groves and dry-landscape gardens, rain in Vietnam, great trees and deserts in Africa. Alongside the smell of flowers and wood, the color of the light, moisture in the air, and the sensation of wind on skin become clues to composing a fragrance.

Sonia has explained that she brings home impressions as well as smells. In Ha Long Bay, it was the rocking of a boat and the humid monsoon air; in Sagano, the wind and sunlight passing through bamboo leaves. She compares her creative process to sculpture, gradually removing and refining elements. Rather than filling a fragrance with every detail of a landscape, she looks for combinations that convey what she felt there.

ELLA K presents its perfumes in two groups, the Legend Collection and Collection K. The former brings together works named after destinations and winds encountered on journeys; the latter gives prominence to camellia, musk, orchid, amber, and myrrh. Collection K also holds memories of particular places, including Sapa, Brazil’s dunes, Lake Como, and Oman.

Legend Collection

In the Legend Collection, titles announce the destination. Yet perfumes inspired by the same country or region differ according to the scene Sonia chooses. The two works set in Japan focus respectively on the green of a bamboo grove and the stones and sand of a dry-landscape garden. In the African fragrances, the composition takes its direction from the bark of a great tree, flowers by the water, or the smell of leather carried on the wind.

Poème de Sagano (Poem of Sagano) is an early creation inspired by the bamboo groves of Sagano in Kyoto. Its subjects are the upright growth of bamboo, layers of green, and light filtering through leaves stirred by the wind. Bergamot, yuzu, and grapefruit meet notes suggesting bamboo, matcha, and shiso leaves, leading into cedar and musk. Sonia sought to express the experience of breathing in the grove, beyond the smell of an individual bamboo stem.

Mémoire de Daisen In (2019) turns its gaze downward, toward the stones, gravel, wood, and plants of another Kyoto garden. Inspired by Daisen-in, a subtemple of Daitoku-ji, it layers mineral impressions from nutmeg and ambroxan with maplewood and green notes. Kumquat, bergamot, rose, and peony also form part of the composition. Sonia describes it as a dreamlike interpretation that includes the sensations the garden evokes, rather than a literal copy of the dry landscape.

Pluie sur Ha Long (Rain over Ha Long Bay), another early work, depicts Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay through different forms of water: the sea’s surface, damp mist, and approaching monsoon rain. Lotus and magnolia mingle with the freshness of rhubarb and pear, supported by musk and woody elements. Its Japanese presentation also includes water lily and cyclamen.

Lettre de Pushkar (Letter from Pushkar) is set in the sacred town of Pushkar in Rajasthan, India. Pilgrims approaching the lake, rose petals, brightly colored saris, sunset light, and voices raised in prayer surround the visitor. Sonia began with the sensation of all five senses being stimulated at once. Saffron, nutmeg, and cinnamon are layered with rose, leading into vetiver, patchouli, and vanilla. In Japan, oud is also presented as an element of the scent, whose dense flowers, spices, and woods shape an impression of the sacred place.

Mélodie de l’Altaï (Melody of Altai) was also part of the first collection. Its inspirations are Kazakhstan’s Altai plateau, nomads and horses, and wide grasslands. Saffron, incense, styrax, and leather combine with patchouli, vetiver, benzoin, and tonka bean. The story accompanying the fragrance in Japan includes a fire burning in a ger, giving a setting to its smoky character. Sonia wanted to express the physical sensations awakened by wild nature.

Cri du Kalahari (Cry of the Kalahari, 2019) takes its subject from an experience in Botswana’s Makgadikgadi and the long-lived baobab. Sonia describes its structure, built with green pepper, sandalwood, cedar, and a little patchouli, as simple and vertical. Rich woody notes seek the texture of a hand resting against the surface of a great trunk. She has also explained how the scent of baobab bark was captured and analyzed with Scent Trek, then reconstructed to guide the composition.

Reflet sur l’Okavango (Reflections on the Okavango, 2019) moves to another part of Botswana, a delta of branching waterways. Sonia chose acacia as the fragrance’s central presence. Its nectar-like sweetness meets the bright, powdery impression of woolly caper, the green of papyrus, and the fruitiness of marula, brought together with woody notes of sycamore and mopane. A river spreading inland without reaching the sea, and the plants along its banks, are expressed through flowers, leaves, fruit, and wood.

Three Winds and Leather

In 2021, three fragrances appeared around the themes of the ghibli, harmattan, and khamsin winds. They were introduced at the time as the Leather Collection. Ghibli and Harmattan now appear in the Legend Collection.

Ghibli layers the sweetness of nougat and jasmine over leather. Its scene is a wind carrying the traveler toward shopfronts in the Maghreb, with the softness of confectionery and flowers surrounding the leather. Despite its wind-inspired name, the fragrance focuses on heated air and sweetness rather than coolness.

Harmattan centers on geranium, Texas cedar, and supple leather. Sonia wanted to express the interplay of shadow and light, cold and heat across the dunes. Geranium leaves suggest cool wind and shade, cedar the texture of grains of sand, and leather warmth and depth. The contrasts differ from Ghibli’s nougat and jasmine, even though both works use leather.

Khamsin combines orange blossom and the sweetness of dates with the softness of leather and suede. Its story follows a desert road toward Siwa Oasis, mirages in the distance, and the smell of leather in Cairo’s markets. Saffron, jasmine, and benzoin are also named. It was absent from the Legend Collection listing checked for this article, but remains part of the three fragrances’ shared story.

Collection K

Collection K puts flowers and fragrance materials at the forefront of its titles. It developed from Camélia K and Musc K in 2023 to Orchid K in 2024, Amber K in 2025, and Myrrh K in 2026. These are not portraits of single materials alone: around the named scent, they gather landscapes, food, cinema, and memories of love.

Camélia K (2023) brings together a red camellia encountered in Sapa in northern Vietnam and Wong Kar-wai’s film In the Mood for Love. From the film, Sonia drew the heat of bodies and restrained desire between people who long for one another but cannot come together. She also cites Alexandre Dumas fils’s The Lady of the Camellias as part of the emotional background carried by the flower.

Ginger, dragon fruit, and blood orange lead into rich flowers: red camellia, jasmine sambac, and orange blossom. Vanilla, vetiver, and patchouli support the scent. A poem accompanying the fragrance brings camellia petals together with the touch of skin, expressing its themes of seduction and passion.

Musc K (2023) is inspired by the white dunes and blue-green lagoons of Maranhão in Brazil. In wind lifting the sand, elements suggesting salty flowers, iris, mangrove driftwood, and vetiver lead into Ambrofix and white musk. The contrast between white sand and colored water becomes a fragrance with cleanliness, salinity, and the dry texture of wood.

Sonia writes, “j’ai écrit ce parfum comme une respiration” (I composed this perfume like a breath). She sought a clean, salty musk and entrusted it with a moment in her own life: leaving the past behind and making a new beginning. It suggests an openness of air, distinct from Camélia K’s dense flowers and bodily warmth.

Orchid K (2024) begins with a flower Sonia calls a black vanilla orchid, encountered on Monte Rosa in Italy. To it she added magnolia, jasmine, oleander, and wild roses from the shores of Lake Como. This gathering of flowers from her travels also takes in the sweetness of vanilla cannoli and marshmallow tasted over a meal.

Woody notes evoke sequoias beside the lake and incense drifting from nearby churches. The fragrance depicts a romantic episode at Lake Como in which flowers, food, and buildings were remembered together.

Amber K (2025) grew out of a journey to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Sonia has described capturing the cocoa- and vanilla-like facets she perceived in spider lily, along with the smell of cigar tobacco, using Scent Trek. Generous use of Ambrofix and cedar-like Georgywood strengthens the woody, ambery presence.

The sweetness of flowers, combined with tobacco and tonka bean, also carries a wish to preserve the remembered smell of a loved one’s skin. Tropical flowers, cocoa, cigars, and memories of skin sit within its amber theme. Scent Trek is a technique for capturing and analyzing smells from flowers or the surrounding air for use in perfumery; it does not mean pressing essential oil from the flower.

Myrrh K (2026) depicts memories of Oman through myrrh and the sweetness of confectionery. Elements suggesting halwa, dates, toasted almonds and sesame, tonka bean, and Madagascan vanilla meet an impression of roses from Jebel Akhdar. Rather than presenting only myrrh’s dark, dry side, the fragrance uses flowers and sweet foods to give the resin a softer, skin-close character.

Early Journeys and the Rose of Pushkar

The first collection comprised seven fragrances. Alongside Poème de Sagano, Pluie sur Ha Long, Lettre de Pushkar, and Mélodie de l’Altaï, its beginnings are represented by Baiser de Florence (Kiss of Florence), Brumes de Khao-Sok (Mists of Khao Sok), and Epupa Mon Amour.

Baiser de Florence layers impressions of iris fields, church incense, and the wood carvings and marble of the Uffizi Gallery. Sonia has recalled a kiss exchanged while the taste of icing sugar and almond pastries still lingered on the lips as another part of its inspiration. Beyond the region’s association with iris, the experiences of two people walking through the city become one continuous fragrance.

Brumes de Khao-Sok depicts a moment in Thailand’s tropical rainforest when mist clears to reveal spider lilies and gardenias. Sonia wanted to convey the flowers’ scent and the movement of an awakening jungle. Epupa Mon Amour takes the road to Epupa Falls, on the border between Namibia and Angola, as its subject. Sonia has described expressing the dust and heat of the long, dry journey through spices such as cumin, guaiac wood, saffron, a roasted-tonka impression, and vetiver.

Rose de Pushkar (Rose of Pushkar, 2021) is a separate work that returns to the sacred place of Lettre de Pushkar, this time around rose and oud. Its inspiration is the petals left floating on the lake by pilgrims as twilight gives way to moonlight. Rosewater, saffron, and black pepper lead into rose, oud, and sandalwood, supported by leather, musk, and amber.