Parfumerie di Quartier
Grandi Momenti · Big Moments
Five perfumes for the five moments worth marking. A new chapter, new love, the great escape, becoming a parent, a new home.
Begin with the Discovery Set · $75 →"The fragrance industry has spent decades telling us what we should smell like. Bold. Fresh. Powerful. This collection doesn't do any of that. These five scents mark the moments worth marking — quietly, privately, on the skin of the person crossing them. Designed to be discovered only by the people close enough to deserve it."
Monsieur Buongiorno · Maison Buongiorno
— i. of v. —
For the new job, the new title, the morning that changes everything.
My first job was in a cold Boston office. I arrived early, stayed late, and survived almost entirely on Starbucks and beef jerky — I wish I were kidding. Since then, my relationship with work has changed. It has deepened, broadened, and become something closer to a calling — the stewardship of the world I will one day leave behind. There is no more important way to begin a working day than with confidence and a quiet sense of purpose. Magnolia, orange blossom, and a long dry base of iris. The kind of scent that stays with you through your most important meetings and reminds you, softly, why you're there.
— ii. of v. —
For the first date, the early weeks, the leaning-in.
It has been some time since I've been on a first date — but if I went on one tomorrow, I would carry a Bottega Veneta wallet. Not because it communicates wealth exactly, but because it communicates something more considered than that: taste. The history of perfume began in the same place. In Grasse, in the 16th century, glovemakers began scenting their leather with flowers — tuberose above all — because bathing was, in the age of plague, a genuinely dangerous affair. Perfume was the solution. This scent returns to that original idea: leather and a white flower, very close to the skin. And yes — there is a hidden surprise.
— iii. of v. —
For the honeymoon, the sabbatical, the year you finally took for yourself.
I grew up in Waikiki surrounded by two things: flowers and the sea. Is there anything more sublime than wearing a fresh lei of jasmine pikake on the sand? But the sea I grew up next to was easy to love. After years in San Francisco, I discovered a different kind of sea — cold, dark, a little funky. A sea that few people dare plunge into — but the brave ones who do are rewarded by a divine moment where every thought and worry dissolves into something larger and more mysterious than yourself. You become something simpler, something that belongs to the water. This scent lives in that moment.
— iv. of v. —
For the door that opens, the small astonishing person, the moment nothing has prepared you for.
Fathers were not always present for the very first moments of a child's life. But when you are — when that door opens and they place this small, astonishing person in your arms for the first time — nothing in your life has prepared you for it. It is Bocelli's L'incontro made flesh: every lyric you thought you understood, suddenly manifesting into reality. That first hug is a doorway. What is on the other side of it is the most special relationship you will ever have. I have always believed the perfect version of that moment would carry, somewhere in it, the onaona scent of sandalwood and a fresh plumeria lei.
— v. of v. —
For the keys in the door, the unpacked boxes, the first morning in a place that's yours.
When I think of home, I think of a garden. When I think of a garden, I cannot help but think of Paris in April — the Tuileries at dusk, the Jardin du Luxembourg on a Tuesday morning, Parc Monceau after rain, the courtyard at Le Bristol. In these gardens I see tulips and daffodils. But what I smell is something else entirely: cold mint, wet stone, the particular green of broken stems, and rising above all of it — faint, almost imagined — the first muguet of spring. There is nothing quite like it on earth.
Begin Here
All five fragrances in small format. A way to live with each before choosing the one that's yours. Your $75 becomes credit toward any full-sized bottle.
$75
Five samples · Credit toward any full-sized purchase
Also from the Maison
Five small books on the things that matter — a companion press to the perfumes. The questions the bottles answer.
All Five BooksWe're not selling yet — but we will be. Tell us a little about your nose, and we'll find you when the bottles are ready.
You'll hear from us first.
In the meantime, you can follow the story of the Maison on @maisonbuongiorno and our Substack. If you have additional thoughts, feel free to reach out to me on @monsieurbuongiorno or at monsieur@maisonbuongiorno.com.
— Monsieur Buongiorno