The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Antonio Maretti has built a house around character, fragrances that tell you something about the person wearing them. Naughty List is Cristian Calabro's answer to a specific question: what does a woman wear when she's done being nice? The name came first, cheeky and knowing, a nod to the list everyone keeps but no one admits to. From there, Calabro built upward, candied apple and gingerbread for the opening, the kind of sweetness that announces itself without apology. The heart brings cinnamon and vanilla, warm and intimate, before a base of amber and clove anchors everything into a long, slow finish.
What makes Naughty List work is the tension between edible sweetness and something sharper underneath. The candied apple could read as girlish, but the gingerbread brings a spiced depth that complicates it. The clove in the base isn't loud, but it's the tell. That's what stops the sweetness from becoming syrupy. Without it, this would be a dessert. With it, it's a woman who knows exactly what she's doing.
The evolution
The opening arrives fast, candied apple and gingerbread, bright and immediate, like stepping into a kitchen where something's been baking. There's a warmth to it that doesn't apologize. Within fifteen minutes, the cinnamon enters. It doesn't overtake the apple, it sits beside it, warming the whole composition. The vanilla follows, not dominant but insistent, the thread that runs through everything else. By the second hour, the apple has softened. What remains is cinnamon, vanilla, and a quiet amber that keeps the whole thing close to the skin. The drydown is where Naughty List earns its name. The clove surfaces, just enough to remind you this isn't just sweet. It's sweet with a pulse. On most skin, this lasts eight to ten hours. On dry skin, it softens earlier but never fully disappears, the vanilla clings, close and warm, into the next morning.
Cultural impact
Seasonal fragrances have long occupied a contested space in perfumery, often dismissed as commercial stopgaps rather than serious compositions. The rise of niche and indie houses has complicated this narrative, with brands like Antonio Maretti using holiday releases to explore broader cultural tensions around collective celebration, personal identity, and the commodification of nostalgia. Naughty List arrived in 2025 as part of this evolving tradition, its candied apple and gingerbread notes serving as olfactory shorthand for festive warmth while simultaneously interrogating what that warmth means in a cultural moment marked by ambivalence about performative celebration.
