Gi. Vi. Emme / Visconti di Modrone

Gi. Vi. Emme bore the initials of Don Giuseppe Visconti di Modrone (1879–1941), an aristocratic polymath from one of Milan's most illustrious dynasties — textile manufacturer, president of Internazionale Milano, board member of La Scala, playwright, and the father of cinema director Luchino Visconti. In 1922 he founded the perfume house and began exporting to the United States the same year, a precocious ambition rooted in his study of fragrance in Paris and collaboration with chemists from the Carlo Erba laboratories. Gi. Vi. Emme was one of the largest perfume houses in Italy during the 1920s and 1930s, its advertising posters drawn by Marcello Dudovich and Fulvio Bianconi, its fragrance names conceived with the help of Gabriele d'Annunzio. The house's flagship creation, Contessa Azzurra, launched as early as 1911, pursued an 'emotional perfumery' philosophy — compositions that spoke to the woman wearing them rather than imitating flowers. Rights to key fragrances were acquired in the late 1970s by Turin-based Kelemata, which has maintained their production.