Eau d'Italie

Eau d'Italie was created in 2004 by Marina Sersale, daughter of Paolo Sersale, who founded the Le Sirenuse hotel in Positano in 1951, together with Sebastián Alvarez Murena. The project began as a plan to mark Le Sirenuse's 50th anniversary, but those celebrations were cancelled after the September 11, 2001 attacks; Sersale and Alvarez Murena redirected the idea into developing a fragrance instead, spending roughly two years researching and testing before it launched. Working with French perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour, the pair set an explicit rule to avoid the citrus-and-lemon profile they considered a cliché of Italian scent-making, building the fragrance instead around bergamot paired with blackcurrant, musk, and incense — notes meant to evoke sun-warmed terracotta, wild herbs, sea breeze, and church incense rather than a straightforward citrus grove. The brand remains tied directly to the hotel: it is developed and sold under the Le Sirenuse name and continues to expand its range from the same Positano base, distinguishing it from most hotel-branded fragrance lines produced entirely by outside licensees.