Fragrance house

Aedes de Venustas

Aedes de Venustas began in 1995 as a niche-perfumery boutique in New York’s West Village, founded by Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner. Its name combines Latin terms associated with a house or temple and beauty or grace, and is presented as meaning “temple of beauty.” The boutique initially brought hard-to-find European niche fragrance houses to the United States, with L’Artisan Parfumeur anchoring its opening assortment. Before launching its in-house line, Aedes created a co-signed home fragrance with L’Artisan Parfumeur in 2005 and entered a personal-fragrance partnership in 2008. The in-house line launched in 2012 with Aedes de Venustas Eau de Parfum, also known as Signature, composed by Bertrand Duchaufour. Bradl and Gerstner’s creative model involves direct collaboration with guest perfumers including Bertrand Duchaufour, Ralf Schwieger, Alberto Morillas, Fabrice Pellegrin, and Nathalie Feisthauer. The house’s style combines baroque and contemporary elements, often around rare botanicals and incense. In autumn 2021, it relaunched its artistic fragrance brand with redesigned presentation and the reintroduction of seven earlier fragrances. Signature is its first signature scent, while Iris Nazarena won the Fragrance Foundation’s 2014 Perfume Extraordinaire of the Year award.