J.F. Schwarzlose Berlin

In 1902 the company took over its competitor Treu & Nuglisch and moved production to the Moabit factory at Dreysestraße 5. A 1917 photograph shows the company van bearing the words Rosa Centifolia. The Moabit district licence plate, IA-33, later gave its name to a fragrance of the time, revived today as 1A-33. Then the twentieth century took its toll: war, destruction, reconstruction in 1951 with Marshall Plan funds and, in 1976, final closure.

The revival came in 2012. It was the work of Lutz Herrmann, a perfume bottle designer and now creative director, who had discovered the brand years earlier while researching its history and, with two partners, set out to bring it back as J.F. Schwarzlose Berlin. The compositions are by perfumer Véronique Nyberg, who came to the brand through Herrmann and wanted to give those nineteenth-century scents a modern reading.

The new creations are meant to mirror today's Berlin: self-assured without being loud, cosmopolitan, well away from the mainstream. The house uses high-quality perfume oils in high concentrations, in minimalist bottles. Well-known names include Leder 6, Finale, Treffpunkt 8 Uhr, Rausch and 1A-33, alongside Rosa Centifolia, a name that comes straight from the archive.

Spezieri is an official J.F. Schwarzlose Berlin retailer. Besides full bottles you will find 2 ml samples and the Discovery Set, a good way to work out which Berlin suits you. At our shop in Treviso, on Calmaggiore, you can try the fragrances at your own pace.