Filippo Sorcinelli: From Sacred-Vestment Maker to Perfume Artist, a Tailor of Souls

“I began with music. It was my first source of inspiration.”

— Filippo Sorcinelli

Basic Information
The Founder and the Origins of the Brand
The Brand’s Distinctive Approach
The Fragrance Lineup
By the Way…

Basic Information

Year founded: 2014 (began operating as a perfume brand with the UNUM collection)
Founder: Filippo Sorcinelli
Official website: filipposorcinelli.com

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

The Boy from Mondolfo

Filippo Sorcinelli was born on July 1, 1975, in Mondolfo, a small town in Italy’s Marche region. His family came from a line of textile artisans and tailors, and the young Filippo was always surrounded by a world of cloth and thread. Yet what first stirred his soul was not fabric, but the thunder of the pipe organ.

“When I was five, I once fainted while listening to the sound of an organ.”

— Filippo Sorcinelli (from an interview with Nose Paris)

Years later, he described this formative experience: “When I went with my mother to clean the church, I smelled frankincense for the first time. I saw the sacred vestments in the sacristy and touched the organ. This was my background, my education, and the nourishment for my art and life.”

These childhood sensory experiences, the smoke of frankincense, stone walls, and the fabric of sacred vestments, would pulse through every perfume of the later Filippo Sorcinelli brand.

An Organist at Thirteen

When Filippo turned thirteen, he became organist at Fano Cathedral. He later served as organist at the cathedrals of Rimini and San Benedetto del Tronto too. While children his age were playing football, he reportedly asked someone to accompany him so that he could play the organ at the bishop’s liturgical celebrations. In a later interview, Sorcinelli recalled: “Becoming an organist at thirteen was not only an honor but a great responsibility, and it meant setting aside the normal activities of a child.”

Alongside this, he obtained his Maestro d’Arte qualification, marking completion of an art course, at the art school in Fano in 1992, and studied at the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro until 1996. In 1997, a Pio Sodalizio dei Piceni scholarship took him to the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, where he specialized in organ. His time in Rome was more than musical training. Observing Vatican liturgies at close quarters, he deeply internalized the beauty of sacred music and vestments.

From a young age, he also worked in contemporary artists’ studios, served as artistic director of numerous music festivals, and participated in international exhibitions and art installations, including at the Louvre. These multifaceted activities across painting, photography, and graphic design anticipated the philosophy of the brand he would later describe as “the product of an intermingling of different arts,” or contamination.

The Birth of LAVS: Becoming a Tailor of Sacred Vestments

Returning home from his studies in Rome, Filippo asked himself a question: “Well, what should I do now?” He had studied music, painted, drawn inspiration, and made his choices. With his mother’s words in his heart, “Whatever work you do, always aim for the best. You can always go down later,” he founded LAVS, Laboratorio Atelier Vesti Sacre, in 2001.

LAVS, whose name means “praise” in Latin, is an atelier handcrafting sacred vestments and liturgical objects for Catholic worship. Its origins lie in the family tailoring business he had known since childhood. Sorcinelli says: “LAVS was born from a deep immersion in two particular historical periods, the Romanesque and the Gothic. I wanted to translate the philosophical foundations of those styles into a contemporary form.”

LAVS’s exceptional quality eventually attracted attention in church circles, and one day a call came from the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. Thus, in 2007, Sorcinelli began creating vestments for Benedict XVI, making at least fifty for him. In 2013, he also made the vestments worn at Pope Francis’s first Mass. The media bestowed on him the title “the Pope’s tailor,” but he says he is “simply doing the job well.”

When the two popes died, each wore a white silk mitre made by Sorcinelli as his body lay in its coffin. In 2025, he also made sacred vestments for Pope Leo XIV. In 2021, he received the “Art and Liturgy Prize for Innovation in Sacred Vestments” from the Pontifical Liturgical Institute.

The Birth of UNUM: Toward “Olfactory Tailoring”

At the LAVS atelier, there was a custom of adding scent to the boxes containing finished sacred vestments, enriching the sensory experience of the recipient. This opened the door to perfume creation.

“This is where UNUM began: the desire to create a scent that could make our creations even more unique.”

— Filippo Sorcinelli (from an interview with Kafkaesque Blog)

Sorcinelli’s longtime partner, Marcello, whose surname is not publicly disclosed, had worked with him since LAVS’s earliest days, and together they founded UNUM as a formal company. In 2014, the first fragrance, LAVS, was released, inaugurating the UNUM collection.

UNUM means “one” in Latin. The name expresses the intention to “unite body and soul, transcend time, and create a harmonious symphony of scent.”

The Brand’s Distinctive Approach

Philosophy: “It Is All About Materials and Exploration”

Sorcinelli describes his motto as “It’s about the raw material and the research of materials.” For him, perfume is an intellectual and spiritual experience, not simply sensual pleasure.

“Perfume, like music, is an artistic medium that needs no figurative references. Perfume is the art of the sense of smell.”

— Filippo Sorcinelli (from an interview with Nose Paris)

Each perfume is released in connection with a carefully developed philosophical, literary, or religious theme. Sources of inspiration range across Gothic architecture, Baroque painting, church music, photography, opera, and literature. Working with perfumers who wish to remain anonymous, Sorcinelli supplies the vision and the perfumer translates it into olfactory language. He himself says, “It is not the nose that matters, but what I can interpret through it.”

An Obsession with Black and Materials

A thoroughgoing commitment to black is deeply inscribed in UNUM’s identity.

“Black means separation from society while still being part of it. Black is underground life, rootlessness, a journey into the mysterious self. This is true nobility. If UNUM’s character remains black, it has a reason to exist.”

— Filippo Sorcinelli (from an interview with nero profumo)

UNUM bottles have a rectilinear form reminiscent of a black metal monolith, with metallic and golden textures. Each fragrance comes in a thick black cardboard box, said to suggest the opening of a new chapter in an ancient book.

The Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio

Also noteworthy is Sorcinelli’s incorporation of the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio into packaging design. By embedding mathematical beauty in its proportions and structure, the perfume bottle itself becomes a work of sculptural art. A “thorough attention to detail and intellect” appears throughout the fragrance descriptions, demonstrating how Sorcinelli positions perfumery as “intellectual and theoretical exploration.”

The Wooden Boxes of Extrait de Musique

In the Extrait de Musique collection, the bottles faithfully reproduce the shape of the stop knobs of Notre-Dame Cathedral’s Grand Organ, while the fully handmade wooden boxes evoke a pipe organ’s soundboard. Not only the perfume inside but the packaging itself is an inseparable part of the concept.

The Fragrance Lineup

Filippo Sorcinelli’s fragrances are organized into several collections. Here we introduce three representative ones, though other collections and standalone works also exist.

The UNUM Collection

This group of perfumes forms the brand’s core. Its development has been documented through the thirteenth creation, with further works added since. All fall within the highly concentrated extrait de parfum category, each distilling Sorcinelli’s personal, spiritual, and artistic experiences.

Representative works are introduced below.

LAVS: The collection’s first fragrance and a bestseller. An “incense of incenses” capturing the atmosphere of the sacred-vestment atelier. It moves from black pepper, cardamom, and jasmine to elemi, labdanum, clove, and coriander, then layers opoponax, oakmoss, rosewood, amber, and tonka bean. A majestic impression reminiscent of frankincense, balsams, resins, and old leather unfolds. In this way, the original scent applied to boxes of sacred vestments was brought to the world.

Opus 1144: The “true scent” of the Gothic style, symbolized by the dedication of the choir of Saint-Denis Basilica outside Paris in 1144. “Gothic is a vertical flower, light born from the darkness of matter,” says Sorcinelli. White musk, gray amber, leather, vanilla, sandalwood, and cashmere wood intersect with tangerine and bergamot.

Rosa Nigra: A tribute to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary that transforms the biblical phrase “Nigra sum, sed formosa” (“I am black, but beautiful”) into scent. Without actually including rose, it layers freesia, peach, sandalwood, artemisia, anise, and other materials to evoke a rose. It is said to have taken the longest to develop of all the works in the UNUM collection.

Ennui Noir: “Boredom is not emptiness but fullness, fertile fullness. It is humanity reflecting on its own existence,” Sorcinelli says. It has been described as a “horizontal perfume,” discovering the self and beauty in a fog of solitude.

Symphonie Passion: Inspired by a piece improvised in 1921 and later developed into a composition by Marcel Dupré, the great twentieth-century organist born in Rouen. “It was born from the memory of a journey when I heard someone playing the organ at the foot of that church. The moment the music began, the sound was steeped in wood and powder.”

Reliqvia: Inspired by the Church of the Cross in Senigallia, built in 1608, where Sorcinelli himself serves as organist and artistic director. Taking relics, walls of gold-leaf-covered wood, and a sixteenth-century painting by Federico Barocci as its motifs, it depicts “layers of frankincense and deposits of peat.”

né il giorno né l’ora: The twelfth work in the UNUM collection, a perfume confronting the emotion of fear. It takes inspiration from the parable of the “Ten Virgins” in the Gospel of Matthew. Its ritualistic packaging places a silver bottle in a black velvet bag, to be opened by cutting the shrink-wrap seal with the metal scissors inside.

chiudi gli occhi e poi vedi: The thirteenth work. Taking coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, and Pennywise from Stephen King’s IT as its motifs, it is positioned as “the completion of a study into the meaning of fear.”

The Extrait de Musique Collection

Renamed from SAUF, this collection is an ambitious attempt to translate the stops, or registers, of Notre-Dame Cathedral’s Grand Organ into scent through synesthesia.

“SAUF has two meanings in French: ‘exception’ and ‘salvation.’ No word could describe this project more precisely.”

— Filippo Sorcinelli (from an interview with Tone Glow)

Each perfume in the former lineup bears the name of an organ stop: Plein Jeu III-V, Voix Humaine 8, Violon Basse 16, Unda Maris 8, Trompette 8, and Contre Bombarde 32 were offered. The current official website presents the new “ORGAN #1–#7” collection. “Unda Maris” means “waves of the sea” in Latin and refers to the undulating sound produced by two pipes with one tuned subtly off pitch from the other. The bottles faithfully reproduce organ-stop knobs and come in handmade wooden boxes.

“In SAUF, music and perfume were closer than ever. We can use the words ‘pitch,’ ‘organ,’ and ‘harmony’ for both. Music and perfume are both so delightfully intangible, ephemeral, and fleeting, and therefore unforgettable.”

— Filippo Sorcinelli (from an interview with Tone Glow)

The Atmosphere d’Emotion Collection

Themed around atmospheric phenomena, this collection was renewed in 2025 as a total of ten works. It consists of three fog-themed creations (Nebbia Spessa, Nebbia Densa, Nebbia Fitta), three rain-themed creations (Pioggia Forte, Pioggia Moderata, Pioggia Debole), and four new wind-themed works (Vento Forte, Vento Impetuoso, Ruah, Brezza Leggera). Returning to the symbolic meanings of wind, fog, and rain in the Bible, they are said to explore divine messages from Creation to specific scenes in the New Testament.

By the Way…

Sorcinelli says he once fainted while listening to the sound of an organ, at the age of five. This would become a formative experience in his development as an organist.

Sorcinelli has two earliest olfactory memories. “One is the scent of grains of frankincense that I crushed as a choirboy. The second is the scent of cut wood drifting from my father’s workshop, next to the room where I practiced the piano.” His life was already filled with scent long before he launched a perfume brand.

In his youth, Sorcinelli was acquainted with Mario Giacomelli, the internationally renowned Italian photographer (1925–2000). He helped print Giacomelli’s posters in a screen-printing workshop in Mondolfo, only around twelve kilometers from Senigallia, and met the photographer in his printing workshop in Senigallia. This experience later bore fruit as the perfume io non ho mani che mi accarezzino il volto, “I have no hands to caress my face.”

In 2015, Sorcinelli released the album Francophilie, performing and recording works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Pierre Cochereau, Charles-Marie Widor, and others.

Sorcinelli is Catholic and known for being openly gay. Fusing sacred liturgical art with his own personal philosophy of life, he has a distinctive presence as “someone who simultaneously lives the beauty of the church and the freedom of the contemporary world.”

In December 2024, a Catholic arts association awarded him the title “Segno di Speranza nell’Arte,” or “Sign of Hope in Art,” in anticipation of the Jubilee Holy Year.

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