Dutch design guru Marcel Wanders invokes a sense of each season for Alessi’s first foray into home fragrance and we’re wondering where it’s been all our lives.

We don’t think it’s a stretch to say that home fragrance has felt a little staid over the last couple of years. A good scent can often powerfully alter the mood of a room, but not until recently has anyone attempted to take it beyond the norm beyond wicks and reed diffusers.

But thinking beyond is what Alessi does best. In fact, the Italian design house has been such a trailblazer of modern homewares it’s a wonder it hasn’t dabbled in this arena sooner.

The good news is that biding their time seems to have had its benefits, brewing a take on home fragrance that feels elevated, mature and artistic.

And as it is with all good design, it begins by first looking to nature.

The ‘Five Seasons’ is an ode to the emotions that shift with the changing of the four seasons: ‘Brr’ (winter) with notes of bergamot, lily of the valley and musk, ‘Ahhh’ (spring) contains cardamom, hyacinth and vetiver, ‘Hmm’ (summer) fuses figs, red fruits and mixed woods, ‘Grrr’ (autumn) has incense, cedar wood and moss.

The fifth season, ‘Shhh’, a special scent of eucalyptus, rose and patchouli dedicated to the mystery of humanities place in the Universe.

So, you can see what we mean by elevated.

Here’s where Alessi’s design heritage has its benefits, taking the traditional room sprays and candles and bringing them to life with a choice of mahogany leaf fragrance diffuser, vintage pump perfume bottles, and a stand-out piece of Sardinian lava stone fragment that serves as a scent circulator.

The range is topped off, literally, with a playful zamak chrome-plated bee-shaped candle snuffer. No doubt a homage to the insect that’s so integral to the cross pollination of plants throughout the seasons and the overall fertilisation of new ideas, something that Alessi is so renowned for.

Or maybe we’re reading too much into it? We suppose that’s what good design is all about.

The Alessi ‘Five Seasons’ collection drops in stores in August.