Founders of Discothèque Jessie Willner and Hanover Booth are on a mission to translate the hedonism and euphoria of being at a great party into fragrance.
The brand’s inaugural line of candles, which launched in early 2023, evokes the feeling of eating yuzu cake on a Tokyo dancefloor at the dawn of a millennium, partying with poets at an abandoned Parisian bathhouse in 1979, or exclusive evenings at mythic clubs such as the Mudd Club or Chez Castel. The former, a watering hole for New York’s 1980s art scene, was imagined as a whiskey and vanilla scent, with touches of a ‘peach-flavoured cocktail and the portrait of a flower by Robert Mapplethorpe; the decadence of Paris’ Chez Castel smells like ‘velvet, incense and a lemon drop cocktail’.
Discothèque’s first perfume collection
‘We decided to name the candles after legendary nightclubs because everyone either was a part of them or wished they were,’ Willner says. But for the brand’s latest project, a wearable perfume collection, the pair felt it was time to move beyond the confines of certain clubs in favour of a broader context.
Subsequently, each of the new fragrances references a certain city at a particular time, from L.A. in 1986 to Marrakech in 2003. Of the collection, Willner’s favourite is ‘Lola at Coat Check (New York, 1992)’, a blend of musky notes with a touch of white chocolate. Booth’s, however, is ‘Call for a Good Time (Tokyo, 2000)’. ‘It’s a floral scent but has this weird, abstract feeling because it’s inspired by the look of lasers on the dancefloor,’ she explains. And, it does smell as interesting as this description suggests, with ylang-ylang, jasmine and musk. ‘Every time I wear it people stop me and ask me what it is,’ Hanover adds.
Discothèque is a ‘passion project taken too far,’ jokes Hanover. But this is precisely why it makes the brand so compelling. ‘Everything you see has been touched by us,’ she continues.
This spans from the packaging to the brand’s visual identity and the new perfume bottles: thick cubes of coloured glass with a chrome placard on the front and a square cap embellished like a disco ball.
Even though the Discothèque perfumes are inspired by the nighttime, they are surprisingly adaptable for daylight hours. They might, according to Booth, even inflect your mundane daily activities with a certain energy. ‘When I put on these fragrances, I can feel the excitement of the stories we’ve created,’ she says.
The collection isn’t available globally, just yet. But a playful marketing touch invites you to sign up for a waitlist on the Discothèque website for ‘VIP access’ to their imminent arrival.
