Fragrance Finder Selection

Fragrances Inspired by New York

New York smells of warm leather taxi seats, scalding coffee in bodega cardboard cups, winter steam rising from manhole covers and fresh roses from corner flower vendors — a vertiginous olfactive superimposition that exists nowhere else on earth. New York perfumery has developed its own aesthetic in response to this reality: urban, sophisticated, often androgynous and unapologetic, it prefers the street to the palace and movement to stillness. Maison Margiela's Jazz Club captures the atmosphere of a West Village club at two in the morning with near-documentary precision. Le Labo's Santal 33, whose flagship boutique is in the East Village, has become the unofficial fragrance of certain Manhattan neighbourhoods. DS & Durga, a house born in Brooklyn, transposes American landscapes into fragrances with unparalleled creativity.