Gatsby Yeh
Gatsby Yeh builds worlds you cannot see but can absolutely smell. A self-taught perfumer based in Seattle, Yeh founded Nose of Gatsby in 2023 after more than a decade of quietly studying the craft on their own terms. The path there ran through fine art, graphic design, and illustration, disciplines that trained an eye for composition, color, and narrative before a single bottle was ever blended. Yeh launched the brand with a clear premise: every fragrance should embody an imaginary world, something the wearer steps into rather than simply spritzes on. The debut release, Tears and Smiles, distilled that idea into liquid form, drawing on personal memory and translating it into scent. Recognition arrived quickly. The Fragrance Foundation honored Yeh with a 2025 Indie Perfume Brand spotlight, a meaningful nod for a house still in its first chapter. Yeh continues to operate from Seattle with the hands-on intensity of an artist who treats perfumery as another medium in an already crowded creative practice. Self-taught does not mean untrained. It means the training happened away from institutions, in late-night experiments and the slow accumulation of a personal library of materials, references, and failures worth keeping.
The hits
Notable creations
The signature
How Gatsby composes
Yeh's background in illustration and graphic design shapes a perfumery that thinks in scenes. Compositions tend to carry a narrative arc, opening with a clear image before softening into something more ambiguous and personal. As a self-taught perfumer working without the constraints of corporate briefs, Yeh moves freely between sweet, atmospheric, and emotionally charged territory, building accord by accord rather than chasing market categories. The indie format allows close attention to ingredient quality and small-batch precision, two priorities Yeh has flagged as central to the house. Rather than leaning on a single signature note, the work so far suggests a builder who cares about texture, the way a scent sits on skin, and the emotional register it opens. Expect compositions that read like short stories: specific settings, emotional clarity, and a lingering afterimage once the sillage fades.
Philosophy
What drives Gatsby
Yeh approaches perfumery as world-building, a continuation of a visual art practice translated into an invisible medium. Each composition begins with a place, a feeling, or a story, and the formula follows the fiction. Personal memory anchors the work. Tears and Smiles grew from lived experience, and Yeh treats that willingness to draw from the intimate as a creative non-negotiable. The goal is not to replicate a real room or a literal flower but to give the wearer somewhere to go. Independence matters here. Running a small Seattle house means every decision, from raw material sourcing to the pace of releases, stays in the hands of the person who imagined the scent in the first place. Yeh has spoken about the patience required, describing the craft as something brewed over fifteen years before the brand ever existed. That patience shows up in the finished work: compositions that feel considered, unhurried, and built to reward attention rather than chase trends.
The houses
Maisons Gatsby composes for
In the same league