Scent and the City

You’d be forgiven for mistaking David Seth Moltz and Kavi Moltz for a cool duo fronting a zeitgeist band. In fact, David (DS) is actually a musician turned perfumer, who translates musical notes into fragrance notes. They began crafting scents at their Brooklyn home which, admits trained architect Kavi (“Durga”, a nickname from her husband referencing the Hindu goddess) was never intended to be a commercial venture.

As their friendship bloomed into a love affair so did their love for perfumery went up a notch when they decided to go big. A self- taught perfumer, David makes sure that he plays around with plenty of ingredients before he narrows down to a fragrance, its story and production then again wife Kavi makes sure that all goes well with packaging, product development and merchandising. A match made in heaven, they support each other in the business-ship as well.

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They specialize in creating small-batch fragrances in-house, like Amber Kiso with its notes of rare woods, temple incense, and leather bushi armor. White Peacock Lily, composed of lily, oleander, and alabaster violet, with a touch of vanilla, is stand-alone egoist, whereas Rose Atlantic, with fresh-bergamot, dune-grass, salt-water, and white-moss notes, will take you for a walk along the seaside. And then there’s Radio Bombay, reminiscent of a lazy summer in the heat, with cedar, sandalwood, balsam-fir, and ambergris accords. They recently spread their wings into the Indian market of perfumery. We spoke to Kavi as she unfolded, how it all began...

"The way we started was by making holiday gifts for friends and David just started mixing different perfumes oils and essential oils together. He kind of discovered that he had a knack for it and got very interested in it. By reading a lot more about it, he started experimenting more and buying different ingredients. As a person David is extremely obsessive, once he gets into something, he completes it. And Brooklyn was a haven of creation – bands everywhere, art shows, happenings. We felt like we were in on something and that success could happen overnight. Hence, perfumery wasn't something that we were aiming at, yet it sort of happened for us," says Kavi.

DS & Durga's brand philosophy was definitely one that was a little on the beaten path and things that were not very commercial. Things that people could not find out there. 10 years ago niche perfumery wasn't something that was as per the norms of the commercial market and scents with smokey, leathery notes weren't available." So it was kind of like a hole in the market that we saw. You know like now the niche perfume world has really filled in but we have always just wanted to be on the fringes of the things and that’s where we feel most comfortable," shares Kavi.

When it comes to, what makes them differ from the rest of the scented market, Kavi tells us that visually she is quite inspired by brutalism, edginess and things that are dark. And she feels that comes through in their work and visuals too. With a little bit of quirk, odd, strange and rockin-rolla vibes we both

(David and Kavi) exuberate the same vibes through our names, stories, and fragrances that trigger memories.

"And being a perfumer and designer duo, we are making everything ourselves and not going to a perfume house which is typically how it’s done. We are quite proud that we have done it on our own and taught ourselves in this industry from the outside, it’s really kind of a secretive and opaque industry. No one really wants to help you and in the beginning especially like any questions we had no one would answer," shares Kavi.

Being such avid readers and lovers of literature both David and Kavi love to be able to bring in the usage of wordplay and mixed phrases into their perfumes. They love giving it its own identity for the user to decipher. Today, the couple can most often be found wearing experimental mixtures for new perfumes in the making. They also have a line of fragrances inspired by India, namely, D.S, Durga and Radio Bombay but what strikes them forward is an idea to capture the scent of India in all its entirety with - the vibrant spirit of the people, smells, poetic passages and the colours.

"David is inspired by using Indian ingredients. There is a shop that we visited long ago and returned to in Delhi and Chandni Chowk has this old shop with small bottles of the beautiful attars and ingredients. We can't use them in our perfumes as they are way too rare and expensive but they are our favourite things to just smell in our own home and put it by ourselves because we really feel like the best smelling things come from India," says Kavi.

With sustainability being at the heart of their brand, their boxes are 100 per cent paper and 100 per cent recyclable with no foam in it, and also vegan which is kind of rare. Not surprisingly, layers of fragrances pervade the air of their store with the shelves lined with books and glass vials and bottles. Over the years they have their own following, which seems to grow stronger in years to come.