Romano Ricci
Romano Ricci was born in 1978 into two of France's most storied creative legacies: his great-grandmother Nina Ricci, the legendary couturier, and his grandfather Robert Ricci, the nose behind the iconic L'Air du Temps. Despite that pressure, Ricci made a deliberate choice to learn perfumery on his own terms. After Parfums Nina Ricci was sold in 2000, he spent six years training at France Fragrances, keeping his famous surname to himself while mastering the technical foundations of the craft. He also worked alongside some of the industry's most respected noses, including Pierre Bourdon, Francis Kurkdjian, Isabelle Maillebiau, and Philippe Romano. In 2006, he launched Juliette Has a Gun at Colette in Paris, a brand that fused romanticism, wit, and modernity into each bottle. He later co-founded Nose, the innovative Paris concept store, adding another dimension to his career. Ricci earned a FiFi Award Special Board Prize from the French Federation of Perfumery in 2011.
The hits
Notable creations
The signature
How Romano composes
Ricci operates with irreverence and precision in equal measure. His signature move is subverting expectations around traditionally feminine materials, combining jasmine with coconut milk or wrapping vanilla and neroli in gourmand accords. He favors musks as anchoring elements and treats traditional notes like rose and oud with a wry, modern sensibility. Fragrance names like Another Oud, Mad Madame, and Not a Perfume reflect an almost theatrical approach to branding, where every bottle becomes a character study. His work bridges accessibility with niche innovation, never ostentatious despite its boldness.
Philosophy
What drives Romano
Ricci sees perfume as a tool of seduction, linked to fashion, makeup, and hairstyling as a way of defining oneself externally. What sets his work apart is the presence of humor within a rigorously constructed framework. He believes in questioning existing precepts and adjusting them, learning the rules like a pro so he can break them like an artist. His fragrances are designed to function as characters, little personas the wearer can inhabit. Each scent tells a story andprovokes an emotion, always with a second-degree seriousness behind the playfulness.
The houses
Maisons Romano composes for
In the same league