TOSKOVAT – A WORLD BUILT THROUGH SCENT AND STORY
Key Takeaways
- Toskovat was founded by David-Lev Jipa-Slivinschi, a film graduate and former advertising professional who turned to perfumery as the only medium capable of holding the complexity of the stories he wanted to tell.
- Every fragrance begins as a poem, a short film or an abstract concept before it becomes a scent. That is why they feel layered and alive in a way most perfumes do not.
- The collection spans scent as protest, scent as grief, scent as memory and scent as witness. This is perfume that asks more of you.
- Connection Parfumerie is the official Australian stockist and the first to bring Toskovat to Australia.
Toskovat has become a cult brand for niche fragrance lovers, and for good reason. This is a house that does not just bottle scent. It bottles experience, discomfort, beauty, grief, resistance and memory. Toskovat fragrances are not designed to be worn passively. They are made to be confronted. To be discussed.
Founded by David-Lev Jipa-Slivinschi, an outsider to the perfume industry, Toskovat emerged from a desire to tell stories that did not fit in a box or belong to any marketing brief. David studied film at Oxford, dabbled in advertising and found it hollow. He had stories, poems and scripts simmering inside him and needed a medium that could hold complexity, metaphor and discomfort. Perfumery, he discovered, was that medium. Like the houses that inspired him, including Zoologist, UNUM and Imaginary Authors, David sees fragrance not as fashion but as an art form. A way to translate feeling into form. To allow emotion to be worn rather than just understood.
Scent as Protest
Anarchist A_ is a scathing critique of institutional rot. David uses snow as a metaphor for cocaine, alongside dirty dollars, plastic bags, priest's robes and holy water to paint a picture of corruption, addiction and hypocrisy within spiritual and political structures. Released during Christmas, it dares to question the systems we sanctify. An olfactory rebellion.
Inexcusable Evil nearly did not happen. Inspired by the horrors of war, specifically the invasion of Ukraine, it tackles the ethics of representing suffering in fragrance and does so with power and restraint. Gunpowder, iodine, burning flowers and concrete dust create a haunting portrait of violence and silence. This is perfume as witness.
In the Belly of the Beast is a surreal and heavy meditation on being consumed by power systems. Velvet curtains, institutional interiors, fear, incense and ruin. It feels like being trapped inside the mechanism, swallowed whole by bureaucracy, theatre and ideology.
Fractured Youth
Age of Innocence opens with bubblegum and strawberry before swerving into rubber, gasoline and blood. A portrait of a life changed in an instant. Beautiful, brutal and unforgettable.
Last Birthday Cake tells a life through birthday cakes. Innocent sugar, custard and candle wax give way to boozy richness and finally rope, skin and incense. David has said this scent is deeply personal, perhaps his most autobiographical, and one of his most beloved creations. A gourmand eulogy.
Born Screaming is as primal as it sounds. Notes of hospital air, blood and cotton give way to something warmer but never fully comforting. A raw and honest scent about beginnings.
Loss and Longing
Empty Wishes Well combines petrichor, old coins, myrrh and sage in a meditation on unfulfilled dreams. The scent of throwing your hopes into something dry and echoing. Quiet, poetic and deeply moving.
Things We Never Shared captures the ache of connection missed through warm mulled wine, candlelight and words unspoken. The intimacy that could have been but never was. A scent full of silence.
My Past Selves' Flowers is a floral study on transformation. Leather, powder, petals and old rooms. A nostalgic walk through your own evolution.
Cinematic Memory
Generation Godard is a sensory homage to the Soviet-era cinemas of David's youth. Popcorn, cola, cigarettes and old paper create a richly specific environment: the smell of history soaked into theatre seats, worn leather jackets and the faint hum of film reels. A tribute not just to Godard the filmmaker but to the feeling of watching something that changes you.
Curtain Call blends praline, wood, velvet and applause into a final bow in scent. It feels like walking out of a performance knowing something inside you has shifted.
