D.S. & Durga

(playful violin music)

[David] The way I experience aromatic materials

is I think a lot in terms of colors and times and places.

For me, I'm very interested in getting very specific.

I wanna be able to conjure up what it would smell like

in Bowmaker's shop in the Pioneer Valley

in Western Massachusetts in the 1820's or 30's.

Rather than just being jasmine or patchouli.

To me it's really about creating a whole world.

D.S. & Durga is a perfume house out of Brooklyn, New York.

I'm David Moltz.

I am the perfumer for D.S. & Durga.

I make all the scents.

I'm Kavi Moltz.

I'm the creative director.

I do our designs.

[David] I was making music and she was doing architecture.

And we starting making a bunch of gifts,

tonics and aftershaves,

and I really just want to make my own stuff.

And this just fell down the rabbit hole.

I feel like I can get all of my creative ideas out

through perfume now in the same way I could through music.

It's very satisfying design-wise to be able to...

see something through from beginning to end.

[David] I really see perfume as an art form.

And we want every scent to arrive

as if it was a great album,

with as much information,

so you know what you're smelling and what inspired it.

Every scent to us is all about the story

and creating that world

so that the sniffer can close their eyes, smell,

and be transported.

[Kavi] I mean they're all somewhat based on non-fiction.

[David] So, with Burning Barbershop it was

what a shaving tonic that had been

through a giant fire would smell like.

The copy reads that it was...

[Kavi] It was found after the fire in this barbershop

in upstate New York.

Like a charred half-full--

bottle of and this is what

the bottle smelled like.

[David] This barbershop tonic.

So it has a really classic like spearmint, lime, vanilla,

a really classic men barbershoppy--

but then a really intense smokey note in there

'cause it had been like roasted through a fire.

Which wouldn't have even happened,

because it would just explode if it was in a fire, but.

History is super important to our business model

even our designs.

And certainly our vision of what the fragrances are.

There's a way to reference the past

without copying it to a T.

We just wanted to keep it classic.

But definitely modern and something

that appeals to modern eyes.

[David] We're interested in certainly the history

of perfume making and it informs what we do,

but we're doing our own thing as well.