Fragrance house

Avant-Garden Lab

Avant-Garden Lab descends from Oliver & Co., the independent fragrance project founded by Spanish perfumer Oliver Valverde, whose origins sources place in 2009–2010. It began with handmade scented candles before developing personal fragrances as Valverde explored the creative possibilities of perfumery materials. Early fragrances appeared in limited editions; after selling well, they led to a permanent core collection and distribution through specialist international retailers. Self-taught and the brand’s central creative figure, Valverde works through a handmade, experimental and intuitive method shaped by materials, emotions, colour, chance and abstraction rather than fixed briefs. The brand connects olfactory and visual design, pairing fragrance concepts with graphic series inspired by botanical imagery, outer space, nature, science, abstraction, synesthesia, laboratories and avant-garde design. In 2020, Valverde rebranded the work as Avant-Garden Lab, carrying over most earlier perfumes in redesigned packaging and introducing the Mutant Flowers collection. M.O.U.S.S.E., his first perfume, was the best-selling scent in the first collection and was later described as the brand’s most popular reference; Ambergreen received the 2017 Duftstars award for Best Artistic Independent Perfume.