# D.S. & Durga — Magnolia City

> Magnolia City is a 2021 limited-edition release from Brooklyn's D.S. & Durga, composed by co-founder and perfumer David Seth Moltz. It is an extremely small-batch perfume-as-armchair-travel piece: a g

## Essence
Magnolia City is a 2021 limited-edition release from Brooklyn's D.S. & Durga, composed by co-founder and perfumer David Seth Moltz. It is an extremely small-batch perfume-as-armchair-travel piece: a green-floral ode to springtime in Brooklyn built around the yellow Magnolia brooklynensis. Moltz's text frames it as Brooklyn coming alive in spring, with bold yellow magnolia popping from sidewalks near cherry trees and the hairy magnolia buds exploding in dank fragrance. Only 100 bottles were made, sold at $250 for 50 ml via the D.S. & Durga site and flagship store, now discontinued and effectively a collector's curio.
## Scent Profile
A bitter-green opening of galbanum, lemon and moss phlox gives way to the dual-magnolia heart - the perfume notably uses two magnolia types, the yellow Magnolia brooklynensis and a saucer magnolia in the base, for an interesting otherworldly effect, plus weedy narcissus and a wild "weedy" orchid.
The base is soft cherry wood and white musk. In wear, noses split on whether it reads as a true magnolia soliflore or as something greener and more abstract: one reviewer found it very green, aromatic and resinous with only a hint of floral powder, not reading as a magnolia at all, while others call it much more floral than anything else, close to drowning yourself in magnolia.
Moltz's framing leans into realism, including the rot and dank facets of actual magnolia blooms rather than a clean perfumey floral. The net effect is a green-floral with a citrus-galbanum bitter edge, a creamy-weedy magnolia core, and a soft woody-musk drydown.
## Performance
The recurring complaint is weak performance, even by D.S. & Durga's transparent standards: measured longevity sits around the middle and sillage low. Reviewers are blunt - it did not last at all, with no projection and barely-there development, feeling more like a floral extract bottled than a perfume. A minority report the opposite on their skin, getting a whiff still lingering the following morning. The honest read is generally soft and short with high skin-chemistry variance, which wearers found especially frustrating at the limited-edition price.
## Wearing Context
Purpose-built for spring - it is literally a Brooklyn-in-April scent - and for warm-weather, daytime, casual wear. It is unisex but, per multiple reviewers, slightly feminine-leaning. It is best understood as a mood and experiential fragrance for fans of green florals and of D.S. & Durga's storytelling, not a performer or a signature workhorse. Given its softness it functions as an intimate, personal-radius daytime floral.
## Comparisons & DNA
Magnolia City sits in D.S. & Durga's green/floral wheelhouse and is naturally connected to the house's other 2021 floral push, the well-received Jazmin Yucatan, with their Crystal Pistil suggested as a layering partner. As a galbanum-forward green floral it nods to the classic green-chypre opening gambit of vintage Miss Dior and Chanel No. 19 but stays modern, transparent and weedy-realistic rather than structured. There is no widely cited one-to-one comparison; its hook is the unusual Brooklyn-botanic-garden magnolia-hybrid concept rather than a familiar accord.
## Reception
Reception is limited, owing to the tiny 100-bottle run. It generated genuine enthusiasm at launch among D.S. & Durga collectors and magnolia lovers, tempered heavily by two gripes: the price and the soft performance. There is no dedicated major-critic review of Magnolia City specifically - Cafleurebon has covered the house extensively but not this release - and written reviews are essentially nonexistent. Reception is therefore thin, reflecting its scarcity. Among those who tried it, the verdict is lovely but slight.
## Versions & Reformulation
A single limited edition: EDP, 50 ml, $250, 100 bottles, 2021, now discontinued, with no reformulation or flanker. The bottle was designed by Kavi Ahuja Moltz, the brand's co-founder and design lead. Because of the tiny run there are no batch variations of note; any bottle in circulation is the original. The brand and aggregators differ slightly on note transcription - moss phlox versus moss flox, the weedy orchid identified as Epipactis helleborine - but these describe the same composition.
## Acquisition Notes
This is a genuine rarity: 100 bottles, long sold out, discontinued. The only realistic acquisition routes are the secondary market, where scarcity rather than demand sets price, and decant splitters that market it as rare and discontinued. Given documented soft performance and high skin-chemistry variance, plus collector pricing, this is a sample-first scent for the curious and a find-it-and-love-green-florals proposition for completists. It is not worth overpaying sight-unsmelled for a fragrance multiple owners found faint.
## Notable Facts & Lore
- Only 100 bottles were made, among D.S. & Durga's most limited releases, part of their small-batch drops released when the time is right.
- The star material, Magnolia brooklynensis, traces to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's hybridizing program, begun in 1953 at its Kitchawan Research Center under Dr. Evamaria Sperber; the first named cultivar, Evamaria, was patented in 1968, so the often-repeated 1953 date is the program's start, not the hybrid's creation.
- The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is one of Moltz's favorite places and the literal subject of the scent.
- Moltz, a self-taught former musician, composes every D.S. & Durga scent himself, describing the house as a band that writes its own songs; it was founded around 2007 in a Bushwick apartment.
- In early 2023 Manzanita Capital - whose portfolio includes Diptyque, Space NK and Malin+Goetz - acquired a majority stake in D.S. & Durga, making pre-acquisition limited drops like Magnolia City artifacts of the founder-run era.