Meo Fusciuni: Before the Molecule Comes Poetry

“a researcher of olfactory memory”
— Meo Fusciuni / Giuseppe Imprezzabile, in his profile for MASQUE

Contents

Basic Information
The Founder and the Origins of the Brand
What Defines the Brand
Incidentally…

Basic Information

Founded: 2010

Founder: Giuseppe Imprezzabile. The brand name “Meo Fusciuni” is also his artistic name.

Artistic director: Federica Castellani

A note on the name’s Japanese rendering: Authorized retailers in Japan write it as “メオフシューニ.”

Official website: https://www.meofusciuni.com/

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

Sicily as the Starting Point

Giuseppe Imprezzabile was born in the spring of 1977 in Mazara del Vallo, a historic fishing-port town on Sicily’s western coast. One of Italy’s largest fishing ports, it is home to families of fishermen and seafarers stretching back generations. Facing the Mediterranean, with Tunisia across the sea, the town has a distinctive atmosphere in which histories, cultures and peoples intersect.

The brand name “Meo Fusciuni” is also a profound homage to his family. “Meo” is a shortened form of his father’s name, Bartolomeo; “Fusciuni,” described as meaning “flow” or “flowing stream” in Sicilian dialect, was his grandfather’s nickname. This poetic artistic name already carries the themes of memory and continuity that run through the entire brand.

A Youth of Science and Travel

After his childhood in Sicily, Giuseppe studied in northern Italy. In his first-person profile for MASQUE, he states that he graduated in Erboristical Techniques from the University of Parma’s School of Pharmacy. He describes anthropology and ethnobotany through experiences in Morocco and Turkey, connecting travel with his interest in plants and human life.

His explorations did not stop there. After university, Giuseppe deepened his practical knowledge of herbs and spices while traveling through Morocco, Turkey and other parts of the Middle East. He is also said to have worked as an artist creating spatial environments, developing an unusual career that embraced both science and art. The experiences of this period, encounters with other cultures, dialogue with plants, and immersion in poetry and literature, became the foundation of his later philosophy of perfumery.

He himself has said in an interview:

“My route into perfumery was quite unconventional. It began with extensive studies of chemistry and botany and long hours in an extraction laboratory. That background helped me enormously in understanding the aspects I found most complex and difficult, particularly formulation and synthetic fragrance molecules.”

The Turning Point: A Door Opens in Istanbul

In 2009, a journey changed everything. Visiting Istanbul, Giuseppe sensed something like “a door opening” amid the spice-filled air of the Grand Bazaar, the damp air of the Bosphorus and the solemn silence of the mosques. He describes it as “the moment a door opened, and I stepped through with courage.”

That journey directly inspired his first perfume, 1# Nota di Viaggio (Rites de Passage), and led to the brand’s establishment in 2010. From then on, Giuseppe began making it his life’s work to transform the emotions encountered on his travels into scent.

“I had never imagined becoming a perfumer, nor was it a family business. But through my studies of herbs and a deep love of literature, I came to understand artistic perfumery as the perfect fusion of science and art. A harmony of molecules and words.”

A Partner and a Mentor

The founding of the brand is not Giuseppe’s story alone. His partner and the brand’s artistic director, Federica Castellani, shapes its visual identity and storytelling language. When a new perfume is being created, Giuseppe first writes down his emotions and travel experiences as poetry, then works with Federica to translate them into materials and images.

His meeting with the Italian perfumer Arturetto Landi also holds special significance in his technical development as a perfumer. Giuseppe himself calls Landi his “maestro,” and the two stood side by side at the brand’s booth at Esxence in 2024.

The Atelier as a “Temple”

Giuseppe’s atelier is now in Sarzana, in Italy’s Liguria region. Previously based in the spa town of Salsomaggiore Terme, he moved to the present Sarzana location in 2025. He calls the atelier a “temple.” The official website states: “Whenever I return from a journey, I come back here, and the soul takes shape and becomes a fragrant liquid.”

What Defines the Brand

The Philosophy of “Poetry before the Molecule”

If Meo Fusciuni’s philosophy could be summed up in one phrase, it would be “poetry before the molecule.” When beginning a perfume, Giuseppe does not head straight to the laboratory. First he writes poetry, imagines a story and listens to music. Only after such inner events as a journey, a stirring of emotion or a dialogue with a work of literature have matured does he begin selecting materials and working on the formula.

“Perfume is an urgency, a state of mind, a journey. It comes into the world as a quest to discover oneself. It is born of an impulse to say something to oneself before sharing it with others.”

Each perfume comes with a poem or text about its creation, sometimes even a playlist of the music that was playing in the atelier while it was being made. Those who purchase a sample set, or discovery set, receive a booklet alongside the small perfume vials. Rather than commercial marketing copy, it contains the actual poems and personal reflections that became the perfume’s first lines.

Defining Himself as an “Aromatorio”

Giuseppe prefers not to be called a “nose” (nez) or “perfumer,” choosing instead the old apothecary term “aromatorio.” This archaic word refers to someone with botanical knowledge who knows how to handle spices and medicinal plants properly. His choice of word distills his essence: someone combining a scientist’s rigor, a herbalist’s view of nature and a poet’s sensitivity.

A Commitment to Materials: The Alchemy of Natural and Synthetic

When choosing materials, he values long-standing relationships with trusted suppliers around the world. The proportion of natural materials is high, and his knowledge of botany and ethnobotany allows him to blend them with a deep understanding of each ingredient’s “soul.” At the same time, he actively uses synthetic fragrance materials to achieve particular effects and “textures.”

Among his raw-material suppliers, he places particular importance on his relationship with Robertet, the long-established French fragrance company, and in recent years has also deepened his collaboration with Italy’s Atelier Fragranze Milano. Among natural materials, his affinity with vetiver is especially strong: he says he is “fascinated by its geographical nuances and the different methods of extraction.” Among synthetic molecules, he makes frequent use of hedione, a jasmine-like fragrance material that gives scent transparency and diffusion, adding movement and lightness to floral accords.

All production takes place in Italy.

Bottle and Packaging Design

Federica Castellani is responsible for the packaging’s visual design. The bottles have a simple presence reminiscent of apothecary mixing bottles, unadorned and practical while conveying artisanal quality. The expression “bottling the memories of a life” in amber-colored, brownish glass aptly captures this distinctive design. The dark gray exhibition stands have also been described as having a Gothic atmosphere, consistently expressing the brand’s introspective, literary world in visual form.

The Fragrance Lineup

Meo Fusciuni has explored travel, poetry, mysticism, transformation, and time spent in Asia through trilogies and cycles. These are autobiographical records of Giuseppe’s questions and inner changes at different moments in his life. The current collections, Travel Memories, Luminous Self-Portraits, and Dark Self-Portraits, do not follow the same divisions. Notturno and Luce, for example, belong to the historical Cycle of Poetry but are now placed in the dark and luminous collections respectively.

The Trilogy of Travel (from 2010)

The first Trilogia del Viaggio connects Istanbul, Morocco, and Sicily. For Giuseppe, preserving the smells of a journey could also mean returning to his origins. For the Sicilian fragrance, he travelled through childhood memories rather than physically revisiting the island. A dedication to his mother, grandmother, and homeland closed the trilogy that had begun abroad.

In Istanbul, his work with medicinal plants gave way to telling the memories of a life through scent. In Shukran, offering and sharing mint tea connects the traveller with local people. The third fragrance turns toward the great fig tree in his grandmother Vincenza’s garden and evenings when the family gathered. Relationships with places and people gave each fragrance its starting point.

1# Nota di Viaggio (Rites de Passage): Istanbul, from the spices and old fabrics of the Grand Bazaar toward quiet places enclosed by woods and resins. Giuseppe’s passage from herbalist to perfumer became a dedication to people in continual movement. A reformulated reissue was announced in 2025.
2# Nota di Viaggio (Shukran): A tribute to Morocco, with refreshing Moroccan dwarf mint and eucalyptus and a trace of tobacco. Shukran means “thank you” in Arabic.
3# Nota di Viaggio (Ciavuru d’Amuri): Its Sicilian name means “scent of love.” Memories of shade beneath the fig tree in his grandmother’s garden and of his mother’s arms form a love letter to Sicily.

The Cycle of Poetry (2012–2013)

After physical travel, Giuseppe entered the mental space of poetry. The Ciclo della Poesia joins the sleepless nights of Notturno to Luce’s search for stillness. Rather than separate pictures of night and morning, the pair traces a passage through darkness toward a renewed balance with nature.

His relationship with materials changed too. After the naturally oriented travel trilogy, Giuseppe described Notturno as giving freedom to the part of himself that had studied chemistry. Natural materials and chemistry could work together to convey private emotions. Luce’s light was not simply cheerfulness, but a quiet equilibrium between people and nature, light and silence.

Notturno: Inspired by the nights of five poets and writers: Hölderlin, Rilke, Celan, Strindberg, and Dostoevsky. Ink and rum suggest a writing desk at midnight, while leather evokes an old diary’s binding. Amber and musk bring warmth toward the end, allowing a sensual, romantic change within the dark introspection.
Luce: Inspired by the architectural harmony of Louis Kahn. It evokes the silence before dawn and the clear air of nature still asleep.

The Trilogy of Mysticism (2014–2017)

The Trilogia della Mistica comprises Narcotico, Odor 93, and L’Oblio. Even after choosing a theme, Giuseppe left room for later experiences, chance, and dreams to influence the work. When introducing Narcotico, he spoke of the next two fragrances as something still to be explored.

The question of the sacred changes across the trilogy. Walking through the churches and streets of his homeland awakened dormant memories in Narcotico. Music and fairy tales create an imagined forest in Odor 93. L’Oblio turns toward the peace found in forgetting rather than recovering memories. Giuseppe’s mysticism was not confined to one religion.

Narcotico (2014): The brand’s first parfum, or extrait de parfum, grew from a journey through Palermo’s sacred places and churches. Returning to Sicily after a long absence, Giuseppe confronted smells held deep in memory and explored sacredness and the human soul. The work also carries his thoughts of Pier Paolo Pasolini and Antonello da Messina.
Odor 93: Dedicated to Current 93 and its founder David Tibet. Smoke and spices lead to tuberose and narcissus, imagined as figures in a northern European forest. Legends and fairy tales told and heard beside a fire become a passage through a dream.
L’Oblio: A journey up the Mekong in Cambodia became an exploration of forgetting as relief. The writer Tiziano Terzani served as a spiritual and literary guide. At the end of the journey, Giuseppe wished to remain in stillness rather than continue carrying memories. Maté and iris lead toward the calm of sandalwood and palo santo.

The Cycle of Metamorphosis (2018–2019)

The two-part Ciclo della Metamorfosi begins with Little Song and closes with Spirito. Its subject is the way time changes Giuseppe’s inner life. Small acts of solitude, coffee left on a desk, a rose held in the hand, a finished cigarette, offered clues for the first fragrance.

Emily Dickinson guided the next work, Spirito. Giuseppe initially considered travelling to New England, where she had lived. Reflecting on the poet’s deliberately restricted surroundings, he instead continued working in the same room as Little Song. Without changing location, he entered an imagined meadow to explore spiritual freedom. The transformation between the two fragrances was an inward journey.

Little Song (2018): Rose and coffee convey passing time and change. The smell at the bottom of a cup left alone on the atelier desk recalls memories. In the rose, Giuseppe sought the depth and powdery texture of petals slowly drying. A small, repeatedly hummed song suggests a continuing connection to the past.
Spirito: Dickinson’s poetry and the emotion of seeing a yellowed herbarium provided the starting point. Giuseppe remembered making plant specimens as a student and imagined the places she had walked. Running through a summer meadow and reading poetry at the edge of a wood became grassy and woody impressions. This was a mental journey through reading and plants, rather than an account of a visit to America.

The Timeless Trilogy (2020–2023)

The Trilogia Senza Tempo links journeys to India, Laos, and Japan. After Spirito, Giuseppe briefly intended to leave trilogies and cycles behind and make fragrances unattached to a particular time or place in his life. Once he began, however, he felt he had lost his bearings. He returned to actual Asian journeys and his diaries as the foundation of a new trilogy.

Stepping outside everyday time, meeting people, and looking inward support the three works. His Varanasi journey took place in 2017, at least two years before he began composing the perfume. The Laotian memory holds the wish that a moment with a loved person might never end. In Sogni, woods convey waking from a dream while the mind remains in a distant Japan.

Varanasi (2020): A record of the 2017 journey to the city beside the Ganges, expressing what India left in Giuseppe’s mind and soul. Saffron, oud, and spikenard create a rich, weighty composition.
Encore du Temps (2022): Osmanthus petals falling into tea during a journey to Laos inspired a wish to stop time. Dedicated to Federica, the fragrance was a finalist in the Artisan category of the 2023 Art and Olfaction Awards.
Sogni (2023): Named for the Italian word for dreams, it brings together Yasunari Kawabata’s literature, Akira Kurosawa’s films, and Giuseppe’s love of bonsai. Different woods convey the passage of time and life itself.

Recent Creations

Viole Nere (2023): A contemporary interpretation of violet, its name means “black violets.” Love of gardens and the cold of damp earth before dawn in March inform the fragrance, with cassis, vetiver, and patchouli adding depth. It won the 2024 Accademia del Profumo award for Miglior Profumo Artistico Marca Indipendente.
Buio (2024): Named for darkness, it follows the mind through a sleepless night in search of its own light. Cade oil and smoky incense lead through darker facets of osmanthus and peony toward vetiver and cedarwood.
Isola (2025): Memories of two islands, Sicily and Japan, meet in an unusually luminous fragrance centered on lemon and yuzu. Giuseppe described it as a turn toward light. Revisiting both places in summer 2023, he associated lemon with childhood and yuzu with the present and future. Wanting Japanese raw materials, he and Federica visited a producer he had met in Geneva; back home, he ordered the materials and began the formula.

Travel Memories and Self-Portraits in Light and Darkness

The current collections are Travel Memories, Luminous Self-Portraits, and Dark Self-Portraits. A work can belong to more than one: Isola and Encore du Temps appear under both travel and light, while Varanasi belongs to travel and darkness. Within the historical mystical trilogy, Narcotico is now placed in the dark collection and L’Oblio in travel.

Travel Memories: Homecoming, Encounters, and Nature

Travel Memories explores physical and spiritual journeys in search of the self. Alongside the three early Nota di Viaggio fragrances, it includes L’Oblio, Varanasi, Encore du Temps, Sogni, Last Season, and Isola. Returning home and encountering unfamiliar places both became records of Giuseppe’s changing life.

Last Season grew from days in Sweden among friends and nature: the Baltic shore, marine plants resting on dark rocks, and summer mornings warming the bark of trees. He sought time to stop speaking continually about himself and listen to the living world around him. Damp earth, woods, and seaweed-like impressions connect the perfume to that experience.

In Encore du Temps, the journey’s attention turns toward a loved person. On a terrace in Luang Prabang, looking over the river with tea and osmanthus flowers, Giuseppe wished their shared time would last. After returning home, the scent of osmanthus in the garden could recall the moment.

Luminous Self-Portraits: Stillness and the Joy of Living

Luminous Self-Portraits explores stillness, silence, and the sacred dimension of existence. It includes Shukran, Ciavuru d’Amuri, Luce, Spirito, Encore du Temps, and Isola, without giving them all the same kind of brightness. In Luce, Giuseppe sought the quiet balance between people and nature after passing through Notturno’s dark tunnel.

Inspired by Louis Kahn’s architecture, Luce builds natural elements into an architectural relationship between light and silence. In Spirito, Dickinson’s words and plant specimens allow the imagination to expand beyond a closed room. This light encompasses peace and finding one’s place as well as outward happiness.

Isola, by contrast, expresses the intense happiness of a summer reunion with home and loved people. Through lemon and yuzu, Giuseppe explored a brightness less expected of his perfumes. For him, neither life’s dark side nor its bright side alone could fully describe who he was.

Dark Self-Portraits: Facing Memory

Dark Self-Portraits explores the meaning of work and existence during darker times, directing attention to breath, the body, and memory. It comprises Notturno, Narcotico, Odor 93, Little Song, Varanasi, and Buio. Their starting points range from poetry and sacred places to fairy tales, solitary daily life, and India.

In Buio, Giuseppe considered anxieties that grow through sleepless nights and diminish in daylight. An early accord combined cade oil, carrot seed, smoky incense, Cashmeran, and Suederal. Reading about Shinto and listening to Nils Frahm, he weighed materials as carefully as choosing words for something important to tell another person. The darkness was also a state he himself wanted to leave behind.

Incidentally…

Joint research with the University of Bologna: As of 2015, Giuseppe said he was participating in a research project with the university’s psychology department on the relationship between olfactory memory and life. No public information was found about its subsequent development or current status.

A perfumer writes a book: Giuseppe has published a book titled Ovunque (“Everywhere”): A Perfumer’s Writings. In March 2024, he held an event with his mentor Arturetto Landi at 10 Corso Como in Milan, offering a poetic and olfactory reading.

Testimony from a renowned critic: Perfume critic Luca Turin described being “blown away” when he tried Viole Nere at Esxence. He also called Meo Fusciuni “a master of interesting top notes, a perfumer with a rare skill.”

ÇaFleureBon’s “Best Perfumer of 2024”: Specialist perfume publication ÇaFleureBon named Giuseppe Imprezzabile its best perfumer of 2024.

References