Fragrance house

J.F. Schwarzlose Berlin

J.F. Schwarzlose Berlin traces its history to 1856, when piano maker Joachim Friedrich Schwarzlose founded a drugstore and colonial-goods business near Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt. In 1869, the Schwarzlose family acquired the distinction of royal court supplier. Under the Köthner family, the business developed an international perfume trade, including exports to the Chinese imperial court. IA–33 was named after Berlin vehicle-registration markings associated with the company’s Moabit production site and presented as a modern perfume for automobile-oriented women in the 1920s. After decades of dormancy, the brand was revived in 2012 as J.F. Schwarzlose Berlin by Lutz Herrmann, Tamas Tagscherer, and perfumer Véronique Nyberg. Herrmann shaped the revived brand’s visual and creative direction, while Nyberg became its perfumer. Its collection combines modern reinterpretations of historical fragrances, reconstructed through surviving bottles, with new creations inspired by present-day Berlin. IA–33 was described as a famous Berlin perfume and reported as one of the city’s most successful fragrances from the 1920s through the 1970s; the revived house reconstructed it from surviving evidence because no original formula survived. It operates as an independent brand through J.F.S. Parfums Berlin GmbH & Co. KG.