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On a recent frigid morning in Manhattan, David and Kavi Moltz, the tattooed thirtysomethings behind the fragrance house D.S. & Durga, are warming up over eggs at Cafe Gitane. The place has long been a refuge for well-heeled people escaping the nearby Soho scrum. “I used to work here, at Gitane, so this whole neighborhood I’ve always loved,” says David, talking about the tiny coffee shops and fashion boutiques that still dot the surrounding streets. This month, D.S. & Durga’s new storefront on Mulberry Street adds another destination to the list. It’s all there in one place: story-soaked perfumes, candles with crisp visuals, air fresheners for the rearview mirror scented like misty Big Sur.
Why did a brand born of the Brooklyn makers’ movement plant its flag across the river? “New York is eternal,” says David of the island’s pull. “We want to be downtown, in the heart of it.” Kavi, who previously worked as an architect, teamed up with the firm K&Co to oversee the design, with support from Pliskin Architecture. There are brutalist furnishings—including a suspended slab of poured concrete serving as a desk—and shape-shifting elements. Everything from the glowing colored lights to the labored-over playlists can be tuned to evoke the mood of a given perfume, and they plan to animate the space with monthly events. (Don’t be surprised to see a transplanted Nantucket inside the shop come summer, in homage to the salt-streaked Rose Atlantic perfume, which will soon be offered as body products as well.)
In the meantime, with Valentine’s Day ahead and romance—fleeting, intoxicating, or spent—in the air, the couple shares a fresh on-theme pairing with Vanity Fair: love songs and perfumes. Have a listen, take a whiff, and you might just find your new signature.
“It’s the ultimate ode to the magic of summer,” says David of this nostalgia-soaked tune by “Boston’s favorite son.” (Never mind that Richman adopted a Long Island accent after Lou Reed.) Rose Atlantic—with a saltwater accord mingling with petal and dune-grass notes—is a distillation of warm-weather New England. If the song looks back on glory days and school-age crushes, the perfume manages to re-create that fleeting exuberance and bottle it up. Rose Atlantic, $260, dsanddurga.com
“This one you won’t know, but when you go listen to this, it could change your life,” says David, unspooling a 60s-era saga about an East Coast cult leader named Mel Lyman, who plays a mean harmonica on this track. There’s an insistent frustration in the flat-voweled singing by Marilyn Kweskin, even as she says to “shake it to the dear one you love the best.” Cowboy Grass echoes that twang, with wild sagebrush and vetiver notes that make it a different kind of cult favorite. Cowboy Grass, $260, dsanddurga.com
In this scorcher off 1967’s Nina Simone Sings the Blues, the singer is out to get it. What fragrance goes with “the sexiest, raunchiest song,” as David puts it? He and Kavi suggest Agent Provocateur’s original perfume, which Kavi wore in her grad-school days in the mid-2000s. The bottle is voluptuous and pink, and the fragrance is an animalic floral—“dirty and sexy,” she says, yet powdery enough that it masquerades as “prim and proper,” adds David. Agent Provocateur, $115, agentprovocateur.com
One song, two versions. “We can’t decide, so you should just say both!” says David, explaining how the Pixies are one of his all-time favorites; same goes for Kavi with the Jesus and Mary Chain. Here, the kind of love broadcast in the lyrics will run up the Con Ed bill (“I get an electric charge from you”), which makes Vio-Volta the winning companion scent. The unconventional fragrance description breaks down the top, heart, and base notes this way: “electric,” “vibration,” and “violet.” Vio-Volta, $260, dsanddurga.com
“Mississippi Medicine is our most badass fragrance,” says David, describing a “smoky, pine-y” scent based on a 13th-century death cult uncovered there. It’s fitting that he and Kavi pair it with this jangly 50s song addressed to a lover, Arlene. “It’s a woman in love with the most badass dude of all time, who has a skull chimney and wears a cobra snake as a necktie,” David explains. Mississippi Medicine, $260, dsanddurga.com
“This song is a really good example of some deep, deep longing,” says David, as Kavi raves about Hamilton Leithauser’s recent set at New York’s Café Carlyle. The opening line—“I had a dream that you were mine / I’ve had that dream a thousand times”—sets the stage for a wandering quest for love. In a different way, Amber Teutonic heads into the primeval forest, chasing mythology by way of evergreen and musk notes. Amber Teutonic, $260, dsanddurga.com
“It pained me to choose a New Order song,” admits Kavi, a fan, but this one won out, “because it’s talking about all these confusing feelings of love”—including overtones of a past relationship that just won’t quit. The perfume to match: D.S. & Durga’s riff on the French phrase je ne sais quoi. Billed as a “fragrance enhancer” with a featherweight transparency, it’s designed to be layered onto another scent for a ménage à parfums. I Don’t Know What, $260, dsanddurga.com
What’s love without heartache? “This is a very multifaceted breakup song—the end-of-the-world type of thing. Just riveting,” says David. “Total despair,” Kavi chimes in. Their fragrance pick, they argue, shares that fractured makeup. “White Peacock Lily seems like a simple one-note fragrance,” David says, but what seems so pure is actually composed of “so many dark, nasty off notes of rotten melon and ham and mothballs.” (The listed notes, meanwhile, are a more palatable Egyptian jasmine, vanilla, and fog.) White Peacock Lily, $260, dsanddurga.com
There’s a pioneer spirit in this Dolly Parton song about an intrepid woman who seeks out “a mean and a vicious” man—and winds up falling in love. “That’s Freetrapper,” says David, describing his Americana fragrance (incense, castoreum, santal) about the days of the beaver-fur trade and seeking fortune in the wilderness. “Just beyond safety is where you find redemption.” Freetrapper, $260, dsanddurga.com
This 1977 song from the album Death of a Ladies’ Man “sort of deals with the theme of toxic masculinity,” David says. “It’s more about lust than love,” adds Kavi. It makes them think of another 70s creation—the classic Polo fragrance in the green bottle, a longtime favorite. “It is über-masculine,” he says. “It became the smell of jocks and men in red pants in Nantucket and New England, where I grew up.” Polo by Ralph Lauren, $105, ralphlauren.com
This two-part homage to Fleetwood Mac nods to the band’s behind-the-scenes drama—how romantic entanglements would spill over into song lyrics and background vocals. If “Go Your Own Way” implies a parting shot, “Silver Springs” warns that “you’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you”—because her voice is right there, woven into the fabric of the music. The husband-and-wife fragrance duo is similarly entangled: “We’re married, and we’re in a band together, right?” David says, metaphorically speaking. Their olfactory love letters to each other—Durga, heady with tuberose, ylang ylang, and jasmine, for Kavi; the soon-to-launch D.S. (saffron, gardenia) for David—are for the ages. Durga, $350, dsanddurga.com; D.S., $350, available soon at dsanddurga.com
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