Heritage
A house, in its own words
The story of d.grayi begins in 2022 when James Nguyen, a Vietnamese American who had spent years working in hair‑care research, decided to translate his fascination with scent into a personal perfume project. He launched the brand under the name d.grayi and introduced the debut fragrance Dispelled, a composition that combined synthetic notes with a hint of traditional Vietnamese jasmine. Early press coverage highlighted the house’s focus on unusual molecular ingredients, such as cadaverine, a compound that can evoke fruit skin and bodily fluids, used to anchor the memory of a specific fruit offering. In 2023 the line expanded with Spice and Sexy Skunk, two scents that demonstrated the brand’s willingness to juxtapose gourmand sweetness with bold, animalic accents. 2024 marked a collaborative milestone when d.grayi partnered with KST SCENT, a Korean fragrance studio, to co‑create a series that merged Vietnamese rice‑based accords with Korean botanical extracts; the partnership was announced on the LV1 Studio website and emphasized a queer, contemporary reinterpretation of heritage. The following year, 2025, saw the release of several narrative‑driven perfumes—White Cat Milktea, Wednesday's Nevermore and Cosmic Serpent—each accompanied by a short visual story on Instagram. By 2026 d.grayi had produced a full catalogue ranging from the playful Baby Dragon to the contemplative Black Dog, establishing a reputation for limited‑edition releases that arrive in hand‑filled glass bottles. Throughout its first five years the house has remained independent, operating out of a modest studio in Ho Chi Minh City while distributing globally through its website and niche perfume retailers. d.grayi approaches perfumery as a dialogue between tradition and experimentation. The founder describes his work as an effort to honor Vietnamese and Korean scent heritage while viewing those references through a queer, contemporary lens. Rather than chasing trends, the brand selects raw materials—rice, jasmine, local spices—and reinterprets them with modern synthetics, allowing familiar aromas to appear in unexpected contexts. Each fragrance is meant to act as a diary entry, a snapshot of a feeling or place that the creator wishes to preserve. The house values transparency, often sharing the molecular building blocks of a scent on social platforms, and it encourages wearers to engage with the narrative behind each bottle. Community feedback is welcomed, but creative decisions remain anchored in the founder’s personal memory bank, which includes childhood meals, street markets and the sounds of urban Vietnam. Sustainability is addressed through small‑batch production, which reduces waste and ensures that each ingredient is sourced responsibly, whether that means partnering with local rice farmers or selecting ethically certified synthetics.