How do you curate your selection?

How do you curate your selection? That’s my business partner – he’s damn good. He has this gut feeling, he’s always had it, and I’m getting there slowly, but he’s always had this understanding from a visual point of view, packaging and such, which is really important – but he needs to smell one scent, and a second later, he’ll say “oh this is good stuff.” Of course, you've been doing this for 18 years. Right, so he is really good. That’s interesting, because we started pre-internet. So first of all, you didn't have as many brands, and the consumer too had to physically go to a store to find something. And then the internet came along, and with that, a lot of that experience of going somewhere and discovering something was gone. And certain things are always easy to find, like if you run out of your favorite Diptyque candle, you go online and get it. But a fragrance, a new fragrance – that’s an experience. You want to enjoy that. [Photos via] Twenty or thirty years ago, you had maybe 50 or 60 fragrances a year that came out. Now, there are thousands every year. It’s too much, and people get confused. It’s our job as a retailer to edit. We do this very rigorously, focusing on the best brands we have. We can’t and we won’t carry everything there is out there. 99% of the brands who approach us, we turn down. We want to tell the story of the brand to the customer, and usually it’s very fascinating, but there has to be a story. That’s a requirement for us. And we see people now, more and more, with the economy improving, coming back to this store, because it’s human nature to see, and to touch, and to smell, and to experience this in person.
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