Sora Dora

In 1920, at eighteen, he has to choose between his father's land and a life elsewhere. He leaves: France is recruiting foreign workers for its mines, and Antoine ends up in Gréasque, in the south-east of the country. A local family gives him a shed at the bottom of their garden, and he thanks them by turning the plot into a garden full of fruit trees, flowers and hundreds of aromatic plants. In his free time he explores the region, and in Grasse he meets Etienne, a jasmine grower twenty years his senior. Etienne sees his talent and makes him head gardener of the plantation. Together, almost in secret, they start experimenting with perfume.

When Etienne dies, Antoine takes over the project and releases his first perfume a year later. In Aix-en-Provence he meets Rose, who becomes his wife; they have three daughters, Jany, Claudie and Marie-Rose, and he passes his craft on to them. The brand still carries the name of that Portuguese immigrant, and the house presents it as a family story spanning four generations.

The first collection under the Soradora name came out in 2021 with seven fragrances. The perfumes are offered as extraits, and the names follow the people and places of the story or invent new ones: Gréasque for the Provençal village, Kamel for a friend of Antoine's, along with Mandorle, Orchidée Rouge, Vanuatu, Gladiator, Brocéliande, Red and Mallow.

Spezieri is an official retailer of Sora Dora. Extraits are concentrated, so it pays to try them on skin first: 2 ml samples are available, or you can visit our shop in Treviso at Calmaggiore 54.