Velichka Gospodinova did not come to Ca' Sagredo to collect anything. The founder of the Bulgarian luxury beauty house LABOR8 already has her Congress Awards trophy, the Special Talent Award presented to her in Cannes at the Beach Ball Gala Dinner inside the Majestic Barrière.

In Venice she returned in a different role, as an ambassador of the Royal Gentlemen Club and Congress Awards, and presented her house inside La Dolce Vita during the closing days of the 83rd Venice Film Festival.


LABOR8 is built on numbers. Every composition is assembled around the numerals one to nine, a system drawn from numerology that the house treats as the signature of each scent and as a carrier of luck for whoever wears it. The name points back to the laboratory the brand came out of and to the eight senses it sets out to wake. 

Formulas are written by perfumers in Grasse and made up in Bulgaria, an unusual route for a young European house and a deliberate one. Since the first release in 2023 the range has travelled to Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Canada. Gospodinova describes the brief in six words. Fragrance is emotion, memory, energy, identity.

Beside her stood Victoria Dimitrova of Leden8, LABOR8's partner and one of the evening's sponsors. Both houses come out of Sofia. A country the industry has known for a century as a supplier of rose oil is now sending finished brands abroad under their own names. 

LEDEN8: Where Beauty Meets Innovation

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Italy answered from the other end of the same business. Massimiliano Giobergia, General Manager of Cosmetic Tailors, presented the principal private label division of BEAUTICON VALLEY, the Brescia group founded by the Negretti family in 1959. The group runs a network of more than fifty companies, works in over 130 countries, employs around 600 people and has passed 400 million euros in consolidated turnover. Cosmetic Tailors builds bespoke Made in Italy products for international beauty companies, combining scientific research, specialised laboratories, clinical testing and the patience of a traditional Italian atelier. A Bulgarian house that composes in Grasse and bottles in Sofia, an Italian group that manufactures for half the industry, one palazzo on the Grand Canal. For a single evening the room held both ends of European beauty.

La Dolce Vita, the Royal Gentlemen Club and Congress Awards evening, is staged by Thomas Misse and Marek Harmony with Anna Stukkert, who founded the Congress Awards programme. Venice was its most demanding setting so far, and neither beauty house in the programme looked out of place in it.

EVENT INFORMATION

Royal Gentlemen Gala Dinner and Congress Awards | Friday, 11 September 2026 | 6.30 pm | Ca' Sagredo Hotel, Venice | Black Tie

Hosted by Royal Gentlemen Club | Thomas Misse and Marek Harmony | Congress Awards founded by Anna Stukkert | Official Jewellery Partner Oliver Weber Collection | Press contact info@royalgentlemen.fr

CA' SAGREDO HOTEL | 11 SEPTEMBER 2026