In 1992, Seinfeld’s Cosmo Kramer came up with a revolutionary idea: a cologne that smelled like the beach. Over three decades later, American menswear icon Todd Snyder has brought Kramer’s vision to life, with his debut cologne in collaboration with Brooklyn-based indie perfume house D.S. & Durga. Todd Snyder (both the man and the brand) and D.S. & Durga have been working together since 2017 when the American menswear house began stocking the perfume house’s scents in both their physical stores and webstore.
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Designed in partnership with D.S. & Durga’s co-founders, husband-and-wife team David Seth Moltz and Kavi Ahuja Moltz (née Durga), Snyder’s first foray into perfumery is an ode to both his and David Seth Moltz’s shared love of the beach. “We started off by talking about these masculine citrus fragrances from the nineties,” recalls Moltz. “And the challenge became updating that and incorporating coastal notes like woolly beach heather.”
With scents like Big Sur After Rain and Burning Barbershop, D.S. & Durga fragrances are designed to evoke unique times, places, and cultural moments, operating off the belief that “a great perfume is a keyhole into another realm; an invisible landscape that you can enter and explore any time.”
The D.S. & Durga x Todd Snyder fragrance acts as a portal to one of Snyder’s favourite places. While — unlike in Kramer’s time — there’s no shortage of beachy scents these days, most of them focus on the aromas of the Mediterranean. For their collaborative fragrance, D.S. & Durga and Todd Snyder look closer to home, selecting botanicals from America’s East Coast.
“Todd wanted to make a fresh cologne that evoked our shared love of East Coast dunes,” David Seth Moltz says. “The plants that grow there are of particular interest to me. It was easy to build out a classic cologne but switching the Mediterranean herbs for ones that grow wild here.” Titled Young Dunes, the oceanic and herbaceous fragrance features fresh, light notes of woolly beach heather, verbena, and citrus, which open up into a heart of sage, sea lavender, and yellow iris. A dry, warm base of suede, musk, and dunegrass underscores the scent.
“The smell of the beach in the morning is one of the most hopeful sensations I know,” said Todd Snyder. “And now, thanks to David Moltz, I can feel that way every day.”
Words by AR Staff
