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If you’ve visited a Cult Gaia store recently, you might have noticed something in the air: the brand’s new fragrances.
On 5 September, the Los Angeles-based brand is expanding its product repertoire with perfumes. The three scents — Mast, Zan and Noor — were two years in the making, all created in-house. Each costs $228.
“I started Cult Gaia with the idea of creating pieces that are memorable and rooted in nostalgia,” says founder and CEO Jasmin Larian Hekmat. “So many of our customers say, ‘I wore Cult Gaia to my baby’s christening; my proposal; my engagement’ — all of these major life moments. The only thing other than photographs and beautiful pieces that, to me, anchors my memories is scent.”
More stores also meant a new opportunity to develop a signature scent. In July, the brand opened its fourth retail store in Los Angeles’s Palisades, following a March Miami opening, on top of the brand’s two boutiques on Melrose Avenue and in Soho, New York (which opened in 2022 and 2023, respectively). “I really wanted to completely envelope our customers in our world,” Hekmat says. “There’s no better way of bringing someone in the door. You’re hit completely, not only visually, but with all your sensory experiences.”
Hekmat has been planting seeds. The brand launched candles in March this year, and the stores smelled like the Noor scent even before then. “So there’s been an appetite for this for a while,” she says. “People have been wondering what it is.”
The fragrance industry is booming, valued at $64.4 billion in 2023 and predicted to grow by 7 per cent to $68.9 billion in 2024, according to Euromonitor. High-end fragrance is a hot pocket of the industry. Over 100 million units of prestige perfume were sold in the United States in 2023, and annual sales are expected to reach $9 billion by 2026, according to research firm Circana. As consumers rein in their spend amid an extended period of economic uncertainty, it appears they’re still willing to shell out a couple hundred dollars on a quality fragrance.
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At $228, Cult Gaia’s 50ml fragrances sit squarely in the middle — much like the brand itself. A fragrance from a beauty brand like Glossier costs around the $100 mark; same goes for Bella Hadid’s Orebella. Fashion brand By Far’s perfumes are priced at $130. Luxury brand perfumes tend to sit in the 100s range (Miss Dior is $178; Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle is $138). More niche perfume brands, on the other hand, climb higher. A Byredo fragrance will set you back $225 for a 50ml bottle; Le Labo $235. Acne’s 100ml bottle is $295.
The Cult Gaia team landed on the mid-200s price range by conducting a market analysis and measuring the perfume’s oil quality against those available. The price is above your standard luxury fashion brand perfume and more akin to a niche luxury fragrance brand.
The launch of fragrance is the latest in a line of Cult Gaia category and retail expansions in the brand’s bid to cement its evolution from Instagram-favourite ‘It bag’ brand to fashion label that’s in it for the long haul. Cult Gaia declined to share revenues, but said revenue growth is up 50 to 60 per cent since 2021. The business has also shifted from 40 per cent direct-to-consumer to 70 per cent since that period.
While many brands move into fragrance via licensing agreements, Cult Gaia kept production in-house. “We could have licensed it out, put it out there and done it faster,” says CFO Asal Nazi. But she and Hekmat didn’t want the product to feel like an afterthought to the main line: “I didn’t want the scents to feel shopping mall or airport or drug store,” Hekmat adds.
Having never worked in the fragrance space before, the team collaborated with fragrance industry perfumers rather than licensing development externally. The bottle design is all Hekmat. It uses signature Cult Gaia codes, from the curved shape that nods to the brand’s first bag (the Ark bag) to the hole at the bottom that lets light peek through. The lids are designed to mimic the marbling on Cult Gaia’s other bags. “I want you to feel like you can collect them,” Hekmat says of the bottles. “No two will be the same, which for me is also so cool: to be able to do something that’s mass but still isn’t. It’s still bespoke.”
For now, the perfumes are only available in-store. The fragrance will sit alongside the brand’s wider product range, billed as a way of buying into the Cult Gaia brand world just as a shopper might do with a signature bag or dress — for sub-$300.
Building out
Fragrance is the latest in a line of category expansions for Cult Gaia, which began as a flower crown brand in 2012. Next came bags in 2013, starting with the Ark, which went viral. For a while, it was known as an ‘It bag’ brand, Hekmat says, unenthused. “Everyone thought we were a one-hit wonder.” It rode the wave before branching out further, with ready-to-wear in 2017, swim in 2019 and childrenswear in 2022. 2024 is for fragrance — will beauty follow suit? Perhaps, Hekmat says, but notes that there are no plans for this as yet.
To date, the bulk of Cult Gaia’s product has sat squarely with what the industry defines as ‘resortwear’, though Hekmat isn’t keen on such demarcations. This season, she’s actively moving in a different direction. Think autumnal hues, heavy denim, knits, and even some jackets. “I love a challenge,” she says. “And I don’t like to be labelled as one thing.”
It’s an important step for a brand that wants to establish itself as a serious cross-category contender. Cult Gaia is currently stocked in approximately 300 retailers — an important presence, but not one that is able to illustrate the scope of the brand, Hekmat says. “The product is so tangible, and you want to experience it across the breadth of categories,” she says. “Which I think wholesale doesn’t do justice. Whereas with DTC, you can really evoke the vision and the dream.”
In July, Cult Gaia took this customer experience back online: not back to its Instagram roots but to the blockchain. The brand launched on Web3-based community rewards platform Try Your Best (TYB), helmed by Outdoor Voices founder Ty Haney. On TYB, brand fans can join ‘The Cult’, where 2,500 members can purchase a Cult Gaia collectible membership pass to gain access to special content, challenges, events and rewards. Early access to new products, perhaps?
With fragrance under its belt, is more beauty next? “I think so,” Hekmat says — noncommittal but optimistic. “I won’t do anything just for the sake of a business and monetary need.” A fortunate position to be in.
Clarification: Article updated to reflect Jasmin Larian Hekmat’s full name. (edited)
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