Nebbia: Wearing Fog, Filippo Sorcinelli’s Poetic Perfume Brand

“NEBBIA is a garment for boundaries, a covering for vanished borders and uncertain steps. It blurs the different ages of life, veils thought, and makes us lose the solemnity of a common-sense perspective. NEBBIA is a portrait of air moving within mystery, a quiet thrill passing through a downcast heart, an insubstantial noise running through a rarefied, malleable, floating parallel world of emotions.”

— Filippo Sorcinelli

Contents

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

Basic Information

Year founded: 2017

Founder: Filippo Sorcinelli

Official website: filipposorcinelli.com

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

A Boy Born in a Town of Fog

Filippo Sorcinelli was born on July 1, 1975, in Mondolfo, a small hilltop town in the Marche region of central Italy.

Childhood impressions lie at the root of almost all his later creative work. At five, visiting the local church with his mother, Filippo was overwhelmed by the scent of incense, the beauty of liturgical vestments, and the resonance of the pipe organ. At the same time, his aunt, a tailor, introduced him to sewing and embroidery. Immersion in these three sensory worlds of sound, cloth, and scent would shape his life.

An Organist at Thirteen

It was in music that Filippo showed remarkable precocity. At thirteen, he became organist of Fano Cathedral, later serving in the same role at the cathedrals of Rimini and San Benedetto del Tronto. He subsequently described the experience as follows.

“Playing the organ in a cathedral at thirteen was not simply an honor, but also a great responsibility that meant setting aside the normal activities of a child. While my friends were playing football or hide-and-seek, I was asking someone to accompany me so I could play the organ at the bishop’s liturgical celebrations. It was an experience that changed the way I saw life.”

He subsequently honed his skills at the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro and completed his musical training at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome. Alongside this, he obtained the Maestro d’Arte qualification marking completion of an art course at the art institute in Fano. The overlap of these three worlds, art, music, and the church, formed the person Filippo Sorcinelli would become.

From Vestments to Perfume: The Path to the Brand’s Birth

Around 2000, Filippo handmade a vestment for a friend who was preparing to enter a religious order. This became a turning point, leading him to establish the LAVS atelier in Santarcangelo di Romagna in 2001. LAVS is an acronym for Laboratorio Atelier Vesti Sacre, a workshop for liturgical vestments, and also evokes the Latin word for “praise,” laus.

The atelier established a reputation that led it to make garments for successive popes, including Benedict XVI, Francis, and Leo XIV, as well as many cardinals. In fulfilling commissions, Filippo had a habit of enveloping the finished liturgical vestments in scent before shipping them. This practice of “giving garments a scent” opened the way to perfume creation.

“For us, scenting the finished LAVS pieces is customary. We regard our work as a journey full of demands on the senses. The origins of the UNUM project are rooted in this idea: the need to create a scent that could distinguish our creations.”

Filippo, whose perfume business is described as having begun in 2013, established the perfume brand UNUM with his collaborator Marcello and, according to the official website, released the first fragrance in 2014. With themes of Gothic architecture, sacred music, and the spirituality of the Vatican, the perfume collection attracted the attention of niche fragrance enthusiasts around the world.

Arriving at the Theme of Fog

While UNUM explored Gothic and religious themes, Filippo’s gaze turned toward natural phenomena, emotions, and poetry. In 2017, Nebbia, an independent brand dedicated to the meteorological phenomenon of fog, or nebbia, was born.

The official website describes it as “a collection of scents inspired by his own poems and paintings,” positioning Nebbia not merely as perfume but as a group of works continuous with Sorcinelli’s poetry and painting.

“None of the perfumes could exist without music. They contain all the forms in which I want to express myself: photography, art, music, painting.”

— Filippo Sorcinelli

The Brand’s Distinctive Approach

“An Atmosphere of Emotion”: The Philosophy of Scent

All Nebbia works bear the collection name “Atmosphere d’Emotion.” Translated as “an atmosphere of emotion,” the phrase succinctly expresses the experience Nebbia seeks: the idea that perfume is not a cosmetic but the very phenomenon of emotion rising into the air.

Filippo says of his perfume creation that “emotions and vibrations matter more than pyramid notes.” He gives his artistic mood boards to a perfumer, or nose, to translate into olfactory language. The nose remains undisclosed and is positioned as the artisan whose role is to embody Filippo’s artistic vision.

Each work in the Nebbia series is accompanied by a short prose text appealing more to poetry than to logic. Rather than “an explanation of a perfume,” it is “a poem inviting you into a landscape of scent,” strongly reflecting Sorcinelli’s identity as a poet.

Bottles and the Philosophy of Fog

Nebbia’s packaging design thoroughly reflects the brand concept. The original bottles used cotton in their caps, allowing “fog” to be experienced directly as a material. Even more noteworthy is the effect created when the bottle is shaken: the liquid turns milky, as though fog were gathering inside the glass. More than a mere theatrical flourish, it means the experience of fog begins before the perfume is “worn.”

The bottles redesigned in September 2025 have a more refined, luxurious finish, with caps sculpted to resemble flowing magma. As the presentation explains, “Curves like cascading magma create forms like atmospheric phenomena, becoming symbols of ceaseless change.” Their contrast with the simple shape of the glass bottle produces a presence reminiscent of a contemporary art installation.

The Fragrance Lineup

Nebbia’s fog and rain fragrances belong to Filippo Sorcinelli’s Atmosphere d’Emotion collection. Three fog fragrances, three rain fragrances, and four works inspired by wind explore atmospheric phenomena. Fog dissolves the outlines of a landscape; rain evokes wet wood, city streets, and memories shared by two bodies; wind extends the subject to biblical breath and storms. All ten are currently offered in Italy as 50 ml extraits de parfum.

Artistic director Filippo Sorcinelli describes the connection between perfume and music as “an artistic medium that doesn’t need figurative references.” In this collection, the smells of nature are layered with unease about what cannot be seen, nostalgia, and intimacy.

The Nebbia Series (2017): A Trilogy of Fog

The three Nebbia fragrances, introduced in 2017, take place by a river, in a forest, and at sea. Each explores fog obscuring the view, but Fitta, Densa, and Spessa are not lighter and stronger versions of one scent. Damp earth, trees, and marine elements form three distinct compositions.

Nebbia Fitta evokes reaching towards iron and stone beside a river, towards objects wet with moisture and rust. As visual clues disappear in the fog, attention turns to touch and the surrounding stillness. The accompanying text invites the reader to close their eyes and listen to the silence.

Known as “Thick Fog,” the fragrance combines amber, patchouli, precious woods, and a wet-earth accord. Its emphasis on waterlogged soil and wood places this fog close to the riverbank, in contrast to Spessa’s marine setting.

Nebbia Densa moves into a forest of damp moss and fallen branches. Among the trees, the horizon disappears and even the sense of distance and scale becomes uncertain. In place of Fitta’s iron and stone, dark greenery is wrapped in thin cloud.

Vetiver and sandalwood are combined with botanical musks, palo santo, and a dew accord. Presented in Japan as “Dense Fog,” it connects the forest’s blurred forms with a search for one’s own place within them. Sorcinelli’s accompanying prose describes narrowing the eyes and trying to breathe in an unfamiliar light.

Nebbia Spessa, presented as “Deep Fog,” turns to the sea. Marine lichen, aquatic notes, and a dew accord centre the composition on water and coastal dampness, distinct from Fitta’s amber and patchouli or Densa’s vetiver and sandalwood.

This is not the openness of a sunny shore. The text describes drifting across an unseen sea, wavering between aversion to saltiness and pleasure. Distant, muffled sounds and a sensation of suspension evoke a state in which neither the footing nor the boundaries of the self are secure.

The Pioggia Series (2022): A Trilogy of Rain

Three fragrances named Pioggia, meaning rain, joined the collection in 2022. Their names indicate light, moderate, and heavy rain, but the differences go beyond strength. Debole centres on wood intended for a fire, Moderata on wet streets in Milan, and Forte on two people caught in a sudden downpour.

Pioggia Debole takes damp firewood prepared for a fireplace as its subject. The wood is saturated with water, and moisture and mould occupy the place where a fire should burn. Within the gentle name “Light Rain” lies the unease of water, wood, and fire failing to come together as intended.

Bergamot and lemon meet pinewood and marine notes, with jasmine and Virginia cedarwood, followed by benzoin, sandalwood, musk, and precious woods. Citrus and watery elements sit alongside wood and resin, depicting rain through the image of damp logs.

Pioggia Moderata is set in Milan. Walking along wet streets brings a nostalgia in which personal feelings seem to rise to the surface. The perspective shifts from the river, forest, and sea of the fog trilogy to the memories of someone moving through an everyday city.

Bergamot, iris, and marine notes meet myrtle and nutmeg. Jasmine, clove, woods, and earthy notes are joined by musk, thyme, tonka bean, labdanum, patchouli, and sandalwood. Iris, spices, and earth add a different character to the citrus and woody elements it shares with Debole.

Pioggia Forte evokes two bodies connected by the memory of sudden, heavy rain. Two desires embrace across the water, giving this scene an intimacy different from Debole’s firewood or Moderata’s city walk.

Gardenia and rose are combined with geranium, jasmine, cyclamen, and marine notes. Moss, benzoin, amber, precious woods, and vegetable musk add further layers.

Four Fragrances Inspired by Wind

The four wind fragrances added after fog and rain each begin with a biblical wind: the breath of creation, the east wind dividing the sea, a violent wind breaking rocks, and a faint breeze after fire. Rather than treating wind simply as refreshing air, they explore life, liberation, destruction, and a quiet sense of presence.

Ruah relates to the opening of Genesis, when the spirit of God moves over the waters. Its Hebrew name connects wind, breath, and spirit. The idea of breath and light reaching a world not yet formed becomes an image of lemon illuminating the smell of the sea.

Lemon, bergamot, and sea-breeze notes are combined with Calone, helichrysum, and elemi, then patchouli, Ambrocenide, and cedar. Where Nebbia Spessa depicts the unease of drifting at sea, Ruah gives the sea the creative promise of something about to be born.

Vento forte draws on Exodus 14:21. With people trapped between Pharaoh’s pursuing army and the sea, a strong east wind blows through the night, dividing the waters and opening a path. The work brings together the forces of those fleeing and those pursuing, and the movement towards liberation.

Suede-like Suedral, Calone, and oakmoss are joined by a mud accord, isobutyl quinoline, and wind notes. Although it shares Calone with Ruah, mud, moss, and leather-like elements take the place of citrus brightness. The combination suggests not only water but also the ground exposed as the sea retreats.

Vento impetuoso refers to the whirlwind in Job 38:1 and the violent wind in 1 Kings 19:11–12. In the latter passage, the Lord is not in the wind that breaks mountains and rocks, nor in the earthquake and fire that follow. The tension lies between overwhelming destructive force and the absence of the presence being sought.

Vetiver, guaiac wood, and cypriol meet birch, a stone accord, and Cashmeran, with styrax, cade, and wind notes. Unlike Vento forte’s sea and mud, its composition calls up wood, stone, and fire, echoing the broken rocks and combustible matter of its subject.

Brezza leggera takes up the faint breeze after the fire in the same passage from 1 Kings. It moves into the quiet moment when the prophet Elijah covers his face, evoking a presence that accompanies and guides rather than noise and destruction. It chooses a different wind from the same biblical scene as Vento impetuoso.

Pine, bergamot, and breeze notes are combined with Mediterranean helichrysum, artemisia, myrrh, musk, and labdanum. Despite its name, meaning “Light Breeze,” the composition includes resins and herbs. Against Ruah’s sea and lemon, Vento forte’s mud and leather, and Vento impetuoso’s stone and wood, conifers, herbs, and resins support this image of quiet breath.

By the Way…

The Nickname “the Pope’s Perfumer”

It was UNUM’s first fragrance, LAVS, that made Filippo Sorcinelli internationally famous. It transformed into a perfume the scent used to envelop the liturgical vestments of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis before shipment. Attracting attention as “The Pope’s Scent,” it continues to be discussed among enthusiasts around the world as a masterpiece of incense perfumery. The Nebbia brand, too, extends from this context of a “perfumer of sacred garments.”

Shake the Bottle and Fog Appears

The way a Nebbia bottle turns milky inside when shaken has long been a talking point among fans. Ingredient lists for older products include light-scattering materials such as “Synthetic Fluorphlogopite” and “CI 77891” (titanium dioxide), suggesting that these ingredients create the visual effect. In its appearance too, it embodies a “bottle of fog.”

The 2021 Art and Liturgy Prize

In 2021, Filippo Sorcinelli received the Art and Liturgy Prize from the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in recognition of innovation in liturgical vestments. It honored his achievements as a liturgical clothing designer rather than a perfume brand, but there is no doubt that the same spirituality permeates his perfumes.

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