Mile-high club ✈️
That’s what I call this letter when I write it from a plane.
Good morning everyone, I’m on a plane so forgive me if any formatting here gets weird. I’m on my way to Los Angeles for a work trip (newsletter and non-newsletter related), and I’m meeting some of you!
Last night I visited the La Mer fish in the basement of Bergdorf Goodman. I love fish tanks and grew up building and maintaining them — the heaters, the sucker fish, the violence between the wrong fish, I’ve seen it all. If there are other impressive fish tanks in the city that you like, let me know.
Today we’re opening up with…
😊🌸👌😌 EMILY’S FRAGRANCE CORNER (if you’re new here, once a month I roundup fragrance news because it’s one of my favorite categories to cover) 💐👃😌
Manzanita Capital has purchased a majority stake in D.S & Durga. Founded by David and Kavi Moltz (who both read this letter) in 2008, D.S & Durga has a cult following, leaning heavily on its origins in Brooklyn, NY. Along with their first investor Monogram Capital Partners, D.S. & DURGA are excited to push the boundaries of what a perfume can be (a restaurant in a bottle, a murder mystery, a perfume named by whales)… guys this is what fragrance is all about, it’s magic, and taking that class last semester rewired how I act to some of this stuff. They’re really thinking about it the right way. I texted Kavi this morning and she told me, “We’re excited to have more resources to help us spread joy through perfume. It’s takes so much to get everything done. With Monogram and Manzanita we have a dream team to show the world how a perfume can be as important as painting or a book.” Manzanita, the family office of the Fisher family, previously invested in Byredo, which it sold to Puig in 2022 for a rumoured $1B, and also owns the fragrance brand Diptyque. Prestige fragrance is a buoyant category – sales increased 12% in 2023. In addition to Byredo and D.S & Durga, Manzanita’s portfolio includes Malin + Goetz.