Kavi and David Moltz are a powerhouse couple who make juggling lives look easy. Talking about balancing D.S. & Durga, a niche perfume line, with a gurgling baby in the back, it’s clear that putting two brains together to run the show is essential in their case. At the end of the day, when they’ve had time to sit down for a Skype call, they begin opening up about the scents of their childhood, the philosophy of perfumery and the mass market for celebrity perfumes. While David works the lab for his perfumes, Kavi puts together the product design.
Kavi recalls her time growing up in India, spending her summers and collecting various scent memories on the way. Her nani’s perfume and Pond’s face cream sitting on the dressing table evoke most memories of her time in New Delhi. ‘Durga’, the latest scent released by the company, comes with a tuberose extract — another memory of her mama who kept a bouquet of tuberoses on her nightstand.
David comes from a little town near the ocean, so the smell of sea salt is numero uno for him. “Also marine boat gas, oysters, pinewood. Even a lemon dish soap when the dishes were being washed in my childhood,” he says.
What makes D.S. & Durga different is the thought that goes into making a scent. “There are no middlemen, no briefs or research done. That’s what makes the product so pure,” says David. One of the hallmarks of niche perfume is keeping the package simple and pure, unlike celebrity perfumes and different bottles for a branding statement.
“My designs are pretty much the same brand-wide. It’s about making sure that it fits the brand aesthetic; it has to fit what you’re creating,” says Kavi. For David, it’s about creating an entire world to get lost in. Equal parts a musician and a perfumer, he compares spraying on a perfume to performing a symphony or reading a book. “It’s equal to the written word, or sound or pictures. There are descriptions, images; you can connect with what you’re spraying.”
The search for a coherent identity eludes the perfume market, especially in the case of luxury perfume houses like Estee Lauder, which outsources its work to other perfumers. Chanel, however, maintains its coherent identity, formerly with Jacques Polge, and now his son Olivier Polge lending his nose to the brand’s perfume line. “Chanel is like the Beatles of fragrance,” David says, “but Estee Lauder, whom I also work with, doesn’t outsource any of its creative aspects.”
What does the existence of the celebrity perfume indicate? That everyone wants to smell like someone else? “That’s the mass market. Perfume has exploded and everyone has operations everywhere. I believe there should be a wardrobe of fragrances, like one fragrance doesn’t define me. It’s like a coat or a jacket,” he refutes.
David tries to be authentic to the story and tries to tell it with purpose. “It’s an artistic translation of ideas. I’m trying to make something original and keep it as beautiful as possible.”
Is there such a thing as a trained nose? David is self-taught, and loved scent as a kid. “Kavi had the idea to make it into a business and we could translate art and architecture. There’s a freedom to it, where you can conjure up anything wonderful: to make the smell of a battery or a lightbulb or a chair.”
For Kavi and David, the Indian market is still nascent and there’s a small market to buy niche perfume and pay a good price for it. “One day we’ll get there. It’s so near and dear to our hearts.”
There’s a culture of spraying on multiple perfumes over your wrist as a test. There’s also another test where you spray it on paper. But we aren’t made of paper. David still think its fair enough. “You can try forty different ones on paper but not on skin. I remember Kavi’s aunt put on 12 or 14 sprays of her perfume, and that’s crazy. In India, it’s like deodorant use. India’s culture — everything is like go big or go home, that’s probably why.”
