Heritage
A house, in its own words
Abbott NYC traces its roots to 2015, when Michael B Pass and Jose Alvarez established the brand in New York City. The partnership between the two founders emerged from a shared reverence for natural landscapes and the memories they hold. Jose Alvarez grew up in Nicaragua, where he developed an early awareness of how scent carries memory and emotion. This connection between place and smell became the conceptual foundation for the brand's entire approach. The founders describe their motivation as celebrating landscapes that hold personal significance, creating fragrances that help ground and focus the wearer. Early releases in 2016 established the brand's catalog with nature-inspired scents including Mojave, Telluride, Sequoia, and The Cape, each named for a specific location. The two co-founders approach fragrance creation as a way to preserve and share their experiences of natural environments, with Jose's Latinx heritage and Central American upbringing informing his perspective on landscape and nature. As a New York-based company founded by two friends rather than a corporate entity, Abbott NYC has maintained a relatively small profile, avoiding major funding rounds while building a collection that now spans desert, mountain, coastal, and woodland environments across North America.
The philosophy behind Abbott NYC centers on the belief that nature possesses healing and centering properties, and that fragrance can serve as a vehicle for reconnecting with natural environments. Jose Alvarez has spoken publicly about his conviction that nature is inherently healing, a perspective shaped by his upbringing in Nicaragua's lush landscapes. This belief drives the brand's commitment to creating scents that evoke specific natural places rather than abstract olfactory concepts. Each fragrance in the collection represents a particular ecological destination, translating the sensory experience of that landscape into liquid form. The founders operate from the premise that scents hold memories, and their products aim to unlock those associations for wearers. The approach prioritizes authenticity of experience over synthetic complexity, seeking to capture genuine atmospheric qualities of outdoor locations. This philosophy extends to the brand's positioning as an alternative to conventional fine fragrances, offering instead a more grounded, experience-driven model where the wearer connects with a place rather than simply wearing a perfume. The Latinx identity of founder Jose Alvarez contributes to the brand's distinct perspective within the fragrance market, bringing cultural specificity to its American naturalist approach.