If Carolina Cansiglioni’s combat boots didn’t tip us off that her new Marni fragrance would stand out from the crowd, her punk attitude sure did. “Everybody is doing flowery fragrances and we hate these kinds of fragrances,” she said with a giggle at the New York launch of Marni. “But we had to have a flower, so we wanted to find a special one, not too girly. We went with black rose.”

Together with Marni_Lab, the Italian house’s workshop, as well as the Milan-based creative agency Rise:on, Carolina and her mother Consuelo spent two years sifting through a hundred or so ingredients to find just the right balance of sugar and spice—with an emphasis on spice. Along with black rose, tomboyish notes of black pepper, ginger, and incense make it clear that wallflowers need not apply.

$155 for 4 oz at Marni