Krizia

Krizia is an Italian fashion and fragrance brand created by designer Mariuccia Mandelli around 1950. Mandelli, a trained seamstress born in 1925, started out selling patterns from her car before establishing her own label in Milan. She chose the name "Krizia" as a playful reference to a character discussed by Plato, reflecting an interest in fashion, vanity, and personality. The fashion house became known for bold, inventive ready-to-wear, including the very short hot pants that earned Mandelli the nickname "Crazy Krizia" among fashion observers.

Perfumery became part of the brand identity in the early 1980s. K de Krizia, generally cited as the first Krizia fragrance, was launched in 1980-1981 and composed by perfumer Maurice Roucel, with the bottle design handled by Pierre Dinand and glassmaker Luigi Bormioli. Later releases such as Krazy Krizia (1991) continued the brand’s tendency toward characterful compositions that sit comfortably within mainstream fashion yet retain a slightly offbeat twist. Over the decades, Krizia fragrances have moved through different licensees and some earlier scents are now discontinued, though they remain of interest to collectors.

Mandelli sold the Krizia label to a Chinese fashion group shortly before her death in 2015, marking a transition in ownership while keeping the brand name alive in international markets. The perfume catalog now mixes vintage creations like K de Krizia and Krazy Krizia with more recent launches, reflecting shifts in style from rich aldehydic chypres and orientals toward lighter contemporary profiles. Even so, the brand’s fragrance history is closely tied to Italian fashion of the 1980s and 1990s and to Mandelli’s individual design perspective.