There is a moment in the Italian afternoon when the light begins to soften, when the day exhales, and everything feels suspended between sun and shadow. It is here, on a balcony perfumed with white jasmine, that Acqua di Parma invites us to linger. To pause. To experience time, not as seconds passing, but as something distilled, rare, and infinitely precious.
This is the spirit of Gelsomino a Freddo, the latest fragrance in Acqua di Parma’s Signatures of the Sun collection a creation born from an ancient technique, crafted with modern daring, and conceived as both an ode to nature and a defiance of convention.
A Rare Art Revived
At its heart lies the near-forgotten art of cold enfleurage, a process requiring patience that borders on devotion. Jasmine petals, freshly gathered at their most fragrant, are laid on purified shea butter and left to surrender their essence slowly, naturally, over 48 hours. Each cycle ends with new blooms replacing the last, until what remains is not simply fragrance, but the very soul of the flower, captured whole.
“The challenge,” perfumer Daphne Bugey explains, “was to balance purity with depth. To let jasmine’s luminous clarity shine, yet embrace the smoky intrigue of tea and wood. And to do this without falling into the expected to create something truly genderless, fluid, modern.”
The result is a composition that unfolds like light through stained glass: zesty Italian lemon and pink pepper at the top; the cool elegance of jasmine enfleurage at the heart; black tea, guaiac wood, and patchouli weaving a darker, resinous counterpoint beneath.
Beyond Scent: A Cinematic Vision
To present this fragrance, Acqua di Parma turned to filmmaker Massimiliano Bomba, whose campaign eschews narrative in favour of mood, texture, and raw emotion. Shot entirely on film, it rejects the polished artifice of modern advertising for something slower, more tactile mirroring the very philosophy of Gelsomino a Freddo itself.
No words, no script. Just movement, light, and shadow telling the story of a fragrance that speaks for itself.
The Italian Arte di Vivere
For over a century, Acqua di Parma has epitomised Italian refinement not as an aesthetic, but as a way of living. Gelsomino a Freddo carries this tradition forward. It is a fragrance for neither women nor men, but for those who seek depth without heaviness, freshness without fragility.
Its companion candle and diffuser invite the scent into the home, turning familiar spaces into sunlit sanctuaries. Because for Acqua di Parma, perfume has always been more than adornment it is atmosphere, identity, a language of emotion.
And so Gelsomino a Freddo arrives not simply as a perfume, but as an experience. A meeting of heritage and innovation, light and shadow, instinct and intention.
Because in the end, luxury is not speed or spectacle. It is time taken to create, craft and to feel. And in Gelsomino a Freddo, time itself is the most exquisite note of all.
Gelsomino a Freddo EDP 100ml £290.00
Gelsomino candle 200g £85.00
Gelsomino diffuser 180ml £102.00
