Makers
Aoiro Air
30 September 2026
Makers
Aoiro Air
30 September 2026
Q: "Aoiro" means blue, the colour of open sky and air. What made that the right name for what you do?
A: The studio name AOIRO comes from the colour of a clear sky, created by the scattering of light in the atmosphere. True to our name, we have dedicated ourselves to capturing what dwells within the seemingly transparent air—light, sound, atmosphere, and human emotions.
Q: Walk us through how a scent starts. Does a brand or space give you a brief, or do you go and just feel the place first?
A: We usually start with a briefing from the brand, and gather more information through our own interviews.
Our aim is to collect as many elements and personalities of the brand or space as possible, through all the senses. The visual themes naturally play a major role, but haptics are also important — from the interior style to the finer materiality of a space. Sound is another interesting element. It can be actual musical notes, or something more abstract — an association with rhythm, for example. It helps us understand the atmosphere already present in the air, or imagine the mood and feelings we want to create.
We often begin working while a space is still under construction, so we cannot always visit the site before we start creating. But when we can, we like to visit and spend time there — experiencing the space and its surroundings, and getting to know its atmosphere as a whole. It allows us to absorb the place more deeply, and to understand what the scent might become within it.
Q: Does living inside your workspace change how you design scent, are you more attuned to how a space breathes over time, versus a one-off client visit?
A: It definitely feels more wholesome. We feel more connected to what we do and create.
There are many personal elements in our space that may not directly relate to work, but they naturally become part of our everyday mood and motivation. In that sense, they allow our approach to keep evolving.
"For us, the line between life and work feels quite seamless — in the way we live, care for, and handle things. So we really enjoy our space in Berlin right now. It is simply our base, where things are nurtured, evolve, and come into being."
Q: The Leipzig Opera project involved sitting through performances to study the mood of the audience. How often does research look like that, more anthropology than perfumery?
A: The scent for The Leipzig Opera was created for the entrance and the foyer to subtly stimulate the excitement to encounter what’s not unexpected. For that, we took several visits and studied mostly the interior decors, motifs, and colour tonality that were highlighting the space. The most iconic was the “dandelion chandelier”. As you enter, the lights are tightly closed, like small flower buds. Moving into the ground-floor foyer, they open into full bloom, inspired by the rounded umbels of a dandelion. Up on the upper floors, the story reaches its climax with grand chandeliers, where delicate glass seed umbrellas seem to drift into the air. And as you walk back down, the cycle comes full circle — the remaining seed pods are embedded into the stair railings. This sentiment and the movement really inspired us to work on a scent, and we are still impressed to recall such details.
Q: What does Berlin smell like to you, if you had to distill it?
A: Addictive dissonance.
For us, Berlin is an organic place, woven together by people of different nationalities, many with unconventional backgrounds. It feels so true to itself that the usual ideas of what a city or a country should be don’t quite apply here. There is something very real about the way Berlin stays true to its own heartbeat. Freedom and solitude are an appetite here—as are destruction and impulse. What you see on the surface doesn’t always reveal what lies underneath. But if you take the time to look, you may discover so many magical details, hidden and intertwined.
A sense of unease is surely part of Berlin’s smell. But somehow, it makes you face your own feelings—to question them, challenge them, and experience them from a different perspective.
Q: If someone could only experience one Aoiro scent to understand what you do, which would it be, and why?
A: It would be HAKUDO RAIN.
Before coming to Berlin, we travelled to different small islands in Japan over several years. RAIN was inspired by those memories of nature—especially by how deeply we experienced rain through all five senses.
The scent captures the many transformations that rain creates: as water moves through the earth, through the leaves, and into the air, bringing a sense of renewal and a purified spirit.
It has been nearly ten years since its first release, and we’re still fascinated by how it reaches people across gender, age, and cultural background. After all, we believe that we all know rain. We all have a relationship with it, in one way or another. And there’s something very precious about being connected to the world through something so universal.
Q: Where do you go in Berlin when you want to unwind and relax, whether through art, food, entertainment, exercise, or learning something new?
A: We have a small garden about 15 minutes from our studio, and we often go there just to enjoy this small growing universe. We love working with the earth and with plants. Even when work is fully loaded, spending time in the garden, getting completely covered in soil, somehow revitalises us.
Also, there is nothing more joyful than cooking with freshly harvested seasonal vegetables. And sharing that table with friends only multiplies the joy.
On weekends, we often take walks around our neighbourhood. Even on our usual routes, we always discover something different. And when we feel open to absorbing more, we enjoy visiting good art exhibitions. We also love to take advantage of the contemporary dance, ballet, and philharmonic concerts here. Berlin offers such an abundance of high-quality art and culture, and we love taking those precious opportunities to immerse ourselves in these different forms of expression.
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