Dolce Riso

A plant grew where the tears fell.

Rice is a backdrop, a rhythm that has been marking the passage of civilisations for thousands of years. A synonym of life and prosperity, it stars in countless legends. One tells of Retna Doumila, Radiant Joy, who asked Shiva for a wedding gift: good, nourishing food that would never leave anyone bored. Retna Doumila died before the wedding. From the tomb, watered by the tears of a disconsolate Shiva, a small plant came up bearing white grains. All of Retna's joy, Shiva said, is enclosed in that plant.

White pepper is spicy over it and musk is warm behind. The grain and the cereals sit in the middle. Vanilla and tonka bean settle delicately sweet over the top and stay there.

Silvio Levi writes a story and then has it translated into smell. A Milanese organic chemist who left pharmaceutical research to take over the family business, Levi created Pitti Immagine Fragranze and then Esxence, coordinated and published the translations of Guy Robert and Maurice Maurin, and works with Mark Buxton, Maurizio Cerizza and Arturetto Landi among them. The text comes first every time, and the materials are chosen to carry it.

Every release also has music written for it. At the start of the project the composer Philip Abussi was handed the fragrances anonymously, without the name, the briefing or the ingredients, and asked only for the sensations; the inspirations came afterwards, and Abussi had caught every one. Each bottle ships wound in a telegraphic stripe of paper carrying the text the fragrance came from, with a red ribbon tied on by hand.