There is something unexpected about Dave Kern.
He did not come up through the fragrance industry. He is not a trained perfumer. His days are spent working in refugee resettlement in Kentucky, helping families find housing and stability in a system that has become increasingly difficult to navigate.
Perfumery, for him, began the way it does for many people. Through memory. The way his parents smelled. The habit of stopping at fragrance counters while his friends moved on. A quiet interest that stayed with him and gradually became something more deliberate.
What makes his story different is what he chose to do with that interest.
In this conversation, he explains how that path led to the creation of American Perfumer, and why he believes independent perfumers in the United States are only at the beginning of what they can become.
Inside a Perfume Store
In Louisville, he spent time inside a small retail space that carried independent fragrance brands, rare bottles, and inventory that sat outside the usual structure of perfume retail. He worked through it slowly. On skin, over time, returning to certain bottles, comparing one against another, revisiting things that didn’t fully reveal themselves at first.
At the same time, he was trading samples online and following conversations happening far beyond the traditional centers of perfumery. What emerged wasn’t a defined category. It was a concentration of work with a different tone and construction. Some fragrances were rough. Others were unexpectedly refined. Many followed their own internal logic.
There was no single style tying them together.
Across the United States, perfumers were working independently, often self-taught, often in isolation. Their work didn’t follow the conventions of European niche perfumery, but it held its own. There was character, risk, and a clear sense of authorship.
That observation became the foundation.
In 2018, he co-founded American Perfumer with his friend Matt White, launching with around thirty perfumer-owned brands.
It gave independent perfumers a single place to exist together.
A Different Kind of Platform
The idea was simple, but not obvious.
Bring these perfumers together. Give them a shared space. Let people discover them in one place.
There was no attempt to standardize their work or shape it into something more marketable. If anything, the appeal was in how different they were from one another. Architects, engineers, artists, chemists. People arriving at perfumery from entirely different directions.
It felt less like a category and more like a movement.
The store eventually moved online after COVID, but the intention remained the same. Today, American Perfumer works both as a retailer and as a collaborator, producing limited editions with independent perfumers while also supporting their individual brands.
What is unusual is how Kern thinks about that support.
He is not interested in competing with the perfumers he carries. In fact, he is open about wanting customers to eventually buy directly from them.
The platform, in that sense, becomes a bridge rather than a destination.
On Quality, and Letting Things Develop
One of the more interesting parts of the conversation is how he approaches selection.
At a time when the barrier to entry in perfumery has become extremely low, the question of who is “real” and who is not comes up often. Kern avoids that distinction entirely.
He does not dismiss early work. He does not expect polish from the beginning. What he looks for is either technical ability or an interesting point of view, and more importantly, a sense that the person will continue.
American perfumery, as he sees it, is still in development.
“We’re in maybe the 25th year of a 100-year arc,” he says.
That perspective changes how you evaluate what you’re smelling. Instead of asking whether something is finished, the question becomes whether it has direction.
Where American Perfumery Stands Now
Globally, the picture is uneven.
Within traditional fragrance structures, American perfumers are still underrepresented. Large brands continue to rely on established systems, often based in Europe. But in the artisan space, the situation looks very different.
Kern is clear about this.
When perfumers are working independently, without external direction, American work stands alongside anything being made elsewhere.
There is also an advantage in freedom. Fewer regulatory constraints, easier access to information, and a culture that allows people to try, fail, and try again without needing permission.
The result is not always refined. But it is active.
A Platform Built on Belief
American Perfumer brings together a group of independent perfumers who were previously working on their own, often without visibility. It gives them a place to be discovered, and just as importantly, taken seriously.
Kern’s role in this is quiet.
He pays attention to the work, builds relationships, and supports the people behind it without trying to position himself at the center. In an industry that often moves in the same direction, that kind of focus stands out.
In our conversation, he also shares where American Perfumer is heading next, including how he is thinking about expanding the house collection and working more directly with perfumers.
To hear more from Dave Kern, and to listen to his perspective in full, watch the complete interview on our YouTube channel.
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