Caterina Catalani

Caterina Catalani is an Italian perfumer and co-founder of AVAU. She grew up in a family whose involvement in perfumery spans three generations. After initially studying business in Bath, working in the family distribution company Finmark led her towards fragrance creation.

She trained at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery, which lists her among its class of 2022. She subsequently worked at Floris in London, where her creations included Lily, a fragrance centred on lily of the valley.

At AVAU, Catalani develops every fragrance in-house. Her siblings Leonardo and Carolina lead the creative direction and strategy. Raw materials often provide her starting point: she looks for facets beyond a familiar first impression and uses those discoveries to develop the house’s compositions.