Xerjoff

Founded 2003 · Turin, Italy · Sergio Momo

Xerjoff is the Italian house that treats the bottle as jewellery and the formula as extravagance: expensive raw materials with no disguise, and a catalogue running from Arabic oud to Italian chypre. Naxos and Erba Pura are its two big names.

History

Sergio Momo founded the house in Turin in 2003 with the idea of making perfumery without a cost ceiling, something the designer industry cannot afford. The house was noticed first in the Gulf — where a taste for expensive raw material already existed — and from there in the West. Naxos, from 2015, with honey, tobacco and lavender, is its most-cited composition; Erba Pura, a fruity amber, is its best seller. Xerjoff also bought Casamorati, a nineteenth-century Bolognese perfumery, and keeps it as a separate line of classical cut.

Iconic models

Naxos (2015)
Honey, tobacco and lavender. The composition that won the house its critics.
Erba Pura
A fruity amber from the Casamorati line; the house's best seller.
Alexandria II
Oud and rose; its card on oriental ground.

Worth knowing

Xerjoff bought Casamorati, a Bolognese house from 1888, and rather than absorbing it keeps it as its own line with its nineteenth-century looks.