Mutis: Contemporary Artistic Niche Perfumes

Mutis Nueva Granada is a house of artistic perfumery conceived by Colombian designer Hanssen David Díaz Reyes, with its first creations dating from 2021. The project takes its name from the eighteenth-century botanist José Celestino Mutis and pays tribute to the botanical and cultural heritage of equatorial South America, interpreted through compositions in oriental, aromatic, and gourmand families.

History and philosophy

Mutis Nueva Granada was founded by Hanssen David Díaz Reyes, a Colombian designer raised in Cali with Italian heritage, who chose the figure of José Celestino Mutis as the brand's founding reference: an eighteenth-century physician, botanist, and mathematician who, under commission from the Spanish Crown, catalogued the flora of the vast territory then known as Nueva Granada — a region corresponding to present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, and parts of Brazil and Peru. The illustrations from the herbarium produced by that scientific expedition form the visual and narrative foundation of the entire project.

The brand's intellectual character is woven through with Colombia's literary tradition: the atmospheres suspended between myth and reality that define Gabriel García Márquez's Magical Realism run through every composition as a cultural undertone, without ever tipping into decorative folklore. Each fragrance is conceived as a narrative fragment of that botanical journey, in which plants, landscapes, and legends are transformed into olfactory experiences.

The style

The fragrances of Mutis Nueva Granada move primarily between oriental, aromatic fougère, and tropical gourmand families, with a recurring use of raw materials drawn from equatorial biodiversity — coffee, cacao, vanilla, resins, and exotic flowers — alongside classic European perfumery ingredients such as Taif rose, sandalwood, cypriol, and oud. The compositions are created in collaboration with perfumers Dominique Moellhausen, Chris Maurice, Luca Maffei, and Manuel Attardi, whose distinct sensibilities contribute to the expressive range of the collection.

• First collection (2021): eight fragrances exploring the exoticism, legend, and folklore of Nueva Granada, with an oriental and aromatic character.
• Aras line (2025): seven compositions inspired by the energy of the Caribbean and its dances, with a gourmand and tropical orientation — notes of banana, coffee, cacao, passion fruit, mango, cinnamon, and vanilla.
• Flacons in glossy black with vivid chromatic accents and a stopper in the shape of a golden parrot, a tribute to the creative director's parrot Roberto: a signature detail that makes the brand instantly recognisable on the shelf.
• All fragrances are offered in Parfum concentration, reflecting a deliberate choice for intense, long-lasting juices.

Best-known products

The collection comprises fifteen fragrances developed between 2021 and 2025, each built around a specific Colombian geographical, botanical, or cultural reference. Among the releases most celebrated by the international fragrance community:

• El Dorado — an aromatic fougère by Dominique Moellhausen; opening notes of pepper, juniper, and bergamot, a heart of incense, pine, and iris, and an ambery base of vanilla and sandalwood. Inspired by the legend of the city of gold.
• Amaranto — a floral oriental, also by Moellhausen; Taif rose, fig, and leather at the top, with orchid, sandalwood, vanilla, and cypriol at the heart. A tribute to the Eje Cafetero — the Coffee and Orchid Triangle — a UNESCO World Heritage site.
• Bahia — a spiced, resinous composition evoking the precious cargo of a tall ship returning from the New World, with floral, ambery, and musky notes in complex balance.
• Macondo — a tropical gourmand from the Aras line by Chris Maurice; banana leaf, pineapple, and rose at the heart, with cacao, cinnamon, vanilla, and tonka bean in the base. The name echoes García Márquez's imaginary city.
• Sonora — a spiced oriental by Luca Maffei; opening on pomelo, lemon, and dates, a heart of rose, cypriol, and coffee, and a base of oud, amberwood, and vanilla.