LOVELY ROSITA

Our company has been privileged to have done many wonderful collaborations, putting our vision and energy to work with some of the most creative talent out there. Through our Apothia fragrance division, we’ve also done some very exciting collaborations. We’ve made a fragrance for the creative and cool fashion company Imogene and Willie of Nashville. We just finished a fragrance for Grammy winning country singer Chris Stapleton. We’ve even done one for Mattel’s Barbie along with 12 other fashion items. But, in 2011, we started meetings and eventually had the honor of creating five home fragrances for none other than the historic Italian fashion house Missoni Home. Most thrilling, I met and worked directly with the matriarch of the family, Rosita Missoni.

The project developed after many years carrying the luxurious Missoni Home beach towels, throws and pillows. We still have them all to this day. Through our relationship with the brand, I met one of the head designers of Missoni Home and Rosita Missoni’s niece, Ms. Wanda Jelmini. Over the years, Wanda had been to our store and admired what we did. We shared a great mutual respect.

I remember during one of our regular, seasonal meetings with the sales manager at the time, Chris Philips, I mentioned that the collection was fine, but our customers would really like to see something additional from the Missoni brand. I saw they had some decorative candles, but they were very expensive. I didn’t think they were very saleable, and, most critically, they didn’t over any fragrant candles. Flippantly, or not, I said that we could make an exceptional collection for Missoni Home through our Apothia brand. The comment didn’t seem to fall on deaf ears. Some time passed and there was communication about this topic every once in a while, with what clearly felt like increased interest on their end. Comments kept up, but no formal request or decision ever followed. I was very excited, but I was frustrated about the amount of time that had passed without even a chance to meet for a yay or nay. I wanted to make a presentation, to find out if we would really be able to work together or I if I should forget about it. I finally pushed the question and told them that I’d come to Milan, meet their team and present my ideas. I packed my fragrances and had my presentation ready. I arrived at the Missoni studio. It’s just north of Milan in a charming area called Golasecca, not far from Lago Maggiore Italy at the base of the Italian Alps Upon entering the showroom, to my complete surprise, already spread out on the countertop sat my Apothia candles and outer boxes, each wrapped in a unique Missoni print. I realized that development ideas were further than what I’d ever imagined. They were deep into working on the idea before I arrived, already figuring out how to Missoni-ize my existing product!

Rosita Missoni, at the time, was just turning 80, with the energy and brightness of someone half that age. I freely admit that one of the highlights of my career was being in the room with this icon. At that moment, it really didn’t matter to me if we ending up doing the fragrance work or not. It was as though I met a fashion goddess, and I was complete and satisfied with just that. But it got better!

Rosita’s family had been knitters for generations. She met her husband Ottavio, an Olympic athlete, they married and founded their upscale knitwear company in 1953. Rosita and I sat and talked for nearly three hours on our first meeting. I explained my thoughts on our fragrances and how I approach fragrance development and Wanda chimed in, kindly telling Rosita, “If you do work with anyone, work with Ron as he is a Craftsman.” Rosita admitted to me that she almost skeptical about development of fragrance because she respected it so much. She said she was “frightened of fragrance.” By that comment, she was saying that fragrance was so important to her and it was so important to get it right.

My presentation to Wanda, Rosita and about four other executives from the company was a bit frightening to me. As I explained it all, there were poker faces on everybody. I didn’t know if I was understood, disliked, boring or what, so I finally asked what they would like to do. The faces were serious. They were actually absorbing my comments and deeply involved in what to do design wise, with the fragrance and the packaging presentation

Rosita told me that she wanted to represent four elements, that of Earth, Fire, Water and Air, but the Italian versions, of course. Missoni designs and patterns,Rosita explained, were often nature in the abstract. The sharpness of the zig-zag could be fire, wavy graphics could be water, etc. She went on to say that she wanted a signature fragrance to represent her. I thought to myself, “Imagine that. I was just asked to make a signature fragrance by Rosita Missoni. Well, Well Ron, you have arrived today.”

All fragrance that I have done is a creation that begins with an experience, a story, a narrative that is then transformed into a fragrance. I asked for some prompts, an experience that would help describe something worthy of a signature fragrance. We talked about what it would be from her perspective, from her heart and mind. I asked her to describe what she felt close to when she thought of a Missoni signature fragrance. She answered: “One of my children has built a home closet, lined it in white Italian Cedar and when I go there, I love that scent.” I said to myself, “The Missonis don’t build closets. It has to be more of a wardrobe.” I imagined the closet from Sex and the City, one where you would go with you girlfriends, sit and count shoes and bags. I started to imagine the fragrance in this white cedar room. It must have a beautiful Italian leather sofa in it. On the table or counter in the room sits a full bowl stacked with Italian blood Tarocco oranges, an inviting area where friends sit and sip hearty, flavorful espresso. She loved it and that became the fragrance.

I took just over a year to get these custom vessels made. While having the containers sampled, multiple times, we continued work on the fragrance development. Rosita has an exceptional fragrance intellect. For one of the fragrances, she directed, “I want you to use, for Earth, a flower called Helichrysum.” She told me it’s the first thing you smell when you get o! the plane in Genoa. You can’t doubt Rosita Missoni. She’s incredibly knowledgeable about fragrance and makes it a point to study it. She visits the famous Chelsea Flower Show in London each year and knows plants and flowers by both their Latin and common names. I had to tell Rosita that, though Helichysum fragrance was familiar to her, I couldn’t place it and, unfortunately, I hadn’t been to Genoa. A few weeks later, back home from Milan, I received this Fed Ex package and, inside it, there’s a brown paper sack.

On the sack, a note said, “Stick your whole head in it!” Inside the bag was a handful of Helichrysum plants. I knew what she really meant. She didn’t want me to try to smell just the flower head but also the stem, as much of the fragrance from this flower comes from the tall, thin woody stem. It was similar to what I’d call a hill or straw flower, stemmy with a small daffodillike flower.

The quality expected from our work was just what one would think of from Missoni and I was hell bent on delivering better. We finally had the fragrances nailed down and I was very proud of that work, but getting each of the colors right on the patterns for the five glass containers, the four earth elements and one signature pattern was another story. I originally asked for some Pantones to match. In actuality, there were more than 17 di!erent colors in one pattern alone. Several of the colors looked similar, but were actually each a di!erent shade. I needed accurate colors. Missoni provided me printouts, but without any references of Pantone or similar color codes, too much was left to interpretation, too many opinions on the color. We lost one or two decorative glass printers going through the process in order to get it right. I also suggested that we metallicize the inside of the candle with silver or gold to emulate the threads of the lurex so often found in their fabrics. I opened up some spaces in the patterns to reveal the metallic shining through the opening of the colors. It gave amazing depth in the look. Getting the colors correctly matched continued to be a challenge, so finally I asked the Missoni team to print o! actual colors of what was acceptable and sign o! on it. We got a copy and they kept one. This was now the reference and we matched each color visually. That finally got us aligned, but we still had some challenges in approvals as I shared the samples in digital photos through emails.

Each time I would receive a new sample of the decorated glass vessel from the manufacturer, I would take a photo of the detail and email it to them. At one point, I felt we were really there, but they surprised me by responding that, the fourth color down is supposed to be Chalk White, not Optic White. It looked right on to me, and others on our team. It seemed to match the master sheet perfectly. I explained that they were likely seeing my photo on their computer screen in Milan di!erently than it showed on my screen in Los Angeles, but they would have none of that. They said, “We are Missoni. This is Optic White and we want Chalk White!” So that was that. They carry that torch so well and, to me, it was OK to be held to their higher standard. I wanted to meet that challenge and did.

I also suggested that we should maintain their classic packaging from all their other items, their beautiful carton with a black bottom and their iconic reddish/brown leather color top. I mocked one up and just wanted it to simply read: Missoni Home by Apothia. It worked beautifully and that’s how it read on every carton. We launched in January of 2014 at Maison & Objet in Paris. We made it all in LA, and shipped to their facilities in Italy. In our agreement, we would be able to sell to the stores that stocked Apothia and they sold at the stores that were Missoni accounts. The project went through the end of 2016, selling out of several tens of thousands of units worldwide. At that point, the Missoni fashion division signed a perfume and fragrance license with a major worldwide brand. That company felt our candles were an infringement on their license and the collaboration ended with all units sold and a demand existing for more. But it was a wonderful, memorable, fulfilling professional experience of which we are incredibly proud.