In a nutshell
A compact, softly lit fragrance library on Scent Row that graduates Dossier from dupe‑brand discourse to whole perfume house, inviting Gen Z and millennial shoppers to build wardrobes, not one‑off dupes. The store signals the graduation from TikTok feed to “perfume house for the next generation” in real life.
In their words
Brand Background
Dossier launched online in 2019 as a digitally native fragrance label offering “designer‑inspired” scents at accessible prices, formulated in Grasse and positioned around clean, vegan, cruelty‑free ingredients with stripped‑back packaging.
The brand’s Dossier Impressions line, which echoes familiar luxury compositions at a fraction of the price, quickly found a following on TikTok and YouTube, while the later Dossier Originals and Dossier Home ranges broadened the offer into proprietary scents and candles.
By 2024 Dossier was widely referenced in beauty media as a Gen‑Z‑focused disruptor of traditional fragrance pricing, even as it sought to emphasise quality and French craft as much as “dupe” culture.
Physical retail arrived in New York as a test. In June 2024 Dossier staged its first pop‑up at 262 Elizabeth Street - a four‑day “South of France” Provençal‑market concept with striped awnings, crates of lemons and lavender, daily activations and live personalisation. The pop-up focused on best-selling scents and new launches, including Neroli Romance: Wedding Edition, and offered engraving, embroidery, and hand-painting as value-added services, with RSVP-based gifting to drive sign-ups and repeat contact.
CEO Sergio Tache later framed this as proof of demand for an offline experience, noting that customer excitement “just a few doors down” from the eventual flagship site convinced the team that Nolita’s “Scent Row” was the right permanent home.
Visit Field notes
On 27 June 2025 Dossier opened its first brick‑and‑mortar boutique at 242 Elizabeth Street, between Prince and Houston, in a stretch known for niche perfumers like Le Labo and D.S. & Durga. The 600‑square‑foot space, designed by Malherbe Paris and built out by Rekon Retail, is styled as a fragrance library: wall bays organise the full catalogue - Dossier Impressions, Dossier Originals and Dossier Home - by six scent families rather than brand or price, with a central “Drop Day” zone highlighting that month’s new release.
Premium Beauty News notes that the store serves as a “space for both discovery and education”, with clear olfactive signage and low, comfortable counters inviting longer testing sessions.
A technical detail sets the flagship apart: testing uses Paperscent devices developed by Gaudier (formerly GK Concept) rather than traditional blotters. These reusable testing paddles deliver controlled sprays, track which fragrances are sampled and feed anonymised traffic analytics back to Dossier, while reducing paper waste and preventing scents from mixing in the air. Chief creative officer Max Poussier describes the aim as “the ultimate immersive perfume experience” where customers are guided through scent families and collections in a structured but informal way, with the store presented as “our first real‑world experience, a foundation for building the modern perfume house for the next generation… not just about discovery, it’s about belonging.”
Dossier New York is a compact but telling example of a DTC “dupe”‑conversation brand trying to step up into full‑fledged house status. The journey from a four‑day experiential pop‑up to a permanent boutique on one of the city’s most fragrance‑dense streets shows how pop‑ups can be used as low‑risk probes for location and concept, how data‑driven tools like Paperscent can be integrated without breaking the intimacy of sampling, and how a digital‑first label reframes its narrative from copycatting to curation, education and community.
Checkout
- The layout of the store in the scent families
- the Paperscent devices
- focus on original scents and their 'maison' status aspirations.
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