In Conversation: David Seth Moltz of D.S. & Durga

During your stay with us, you’ll find D.S. & Durga’s Grey Blazer products sitting nicely on the bathroom shelves. As fragrances go, it’s one of those that people stop you on the street to ask what your scent is. We could wax lyrical, but who better to go deeper on it than the man who made it, Brooklyn-based perfumer and co-founder of D.S. & Durga, David Seth Moltz. We caught up with him recently for a chat. 

A perfumer walks into a hotel. How did The Dean first make you feel?

Welcome.

Talk us through the genesis of Grey Blazer. The notes, the name, the feelings.

A grey blazer is an everyday staple in a classic wardrobe - comfortable, dependable, beautiful. Dress up or down any day. I wanted to capture that in an aroma. Soft grey wool flecked with wildflowers and grasses from Donegal.

D.S. & Durga has always resisted the obvious. Where did you resist it in the making of Grey Blazer?

I’m not sure it’s on purpose. We just are who we are.

What time of day is Grey Blazer?

A daytime fragrance for sure. Extend to morning or evening as well.

Scent is so deeply intertwined with memory. Do you think about that when designing for a hotel?

I remember how things smelled and use those memories to make things from time to time. But scent construction is more about making the world to me than remembering the past.

Keith Richards once said he could smell a great song. You’ve bottled Debaser. What song is Grey Blazer?

The GB playlist is a corporate Y2K dude hating the rat race in NYC, sniffing his Donegal blazer and dreaming of running off to Ireland.

Open Spotify

You've bottled highways, rainstorms, record stores. What did you bottle with Grey Blazer?

A grey blazer!

Is Grey Blazer your experience of Ireland as a scent?

It's more that the Donegal wool smells of the sheep and landscape it comes from. 

What’s the best compliment anyone’s ever given you about your work?

That’s tough. There’s so many kind things. I like most when people get what we are trying to do (even if we don’t nail it). Donovan Barnett in Highsnobiety said “the brand builds Miyazaki-level worlds using nothing but invisible olfactory chemicals.” That's pretty cool.