David Seth Moltz

David Seth Moltz is a musician, perfumer and the founder of the Brooklyn-based fragrance house D.S. & Durga, widely regarded as one of the most exciting voices in contemporary niche perfumery. From his studio in New York, he treats scent as an invisible art form, as immersive and transportive as music or literature.

Entirely self-taught, he learned perfumery by obsessively studying raw materials, classic bases and historical formulas, all while blending his own creations in a Bushwick apartment for friends and small, passion-driven projects. In 2007–2008 he co-founded D.S. & Durga with his wife, designer and architect Kavi Ahuja Moltz, in Brooklyn, where he still composes all of the brand’s fragrances with meticulous attention to detail and authenticity.

His creative signature lies in highly narrative perfumes that act as “armchair travel”: each scent is built like the soundtrack to a place, a time or a very specific scene, drawing from musical, literary, geographic and cultural references that he translates into accords and notes. Woods, resins, herbs, leather, smoky and salty facets often play a role, but always in service of a vivid mental picture.

Standing apart from traditional European training, Moltz has forged his own language, blending pop culture, American mythology and a fiercely independent approach to fragrance-making. His work has helped reshape the modern idea of “niche” by bringing conceptual, story-driven perfume to a much wider audience.

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