Esse Strikes The Notes

Esse Strikes The Notes was founded in Italy in 2018 by Roberta Cerizza, who built the house around a synesthetic concept: each fragrance is conceived as a musical composition, with notes played in sequence, harmonics that reveal themselves over time, and a structural logic borrowed from musical theory rather than conventional fragrance architecture. Cerizza works within a family creative practice, with Paolo Cerizza and Martino Cerizza contributing perfumery alongside the more widely known Luca Maffei. The result is a house with unusual internal coherence — family members working from a shared aesthetic framework produce consistent work without the stylistic drift that can afflict houses relying on many external perfumers. Compositions are ambitious and intellectually motivated, appealing to the thoughtful end of the Italian niche market. The synesthetic premise is one of the more genuinely original conceptual frameworks in contemporary Italian perfumery, distinguishing the house from the many lifestyle-oriented Italian indie brands.