The El Cosmico x DS + Durga collaboration was born out of pure creative alchemy.
El Cosmico owner Liz Lambert visited the DS + Durga studio in Brooklyn in 2015 and spent an afternoon levitating on David and Kavi’s ethereal plane, jumping from conversations about music, mysticism and world travels to sniffing strange ingredients from tiny vials that David pulled from the shelf like a wizard. A bond was formed.
From that initial meeting, the first scent in the collaboration, El Cosmico, was born. It conjured the scents that arise from the high plains desert of Marfa, where El Cosmico (the nomadic hotel) is located, after a monsoon rain. To launch the scent, the DS + Durga crew headed to El Cosmico with an elaborate contraption they had created where each element of the fragrance was tied a series of pumps and tubes connected to guitar pedals. David’s band played music that released the fragrance elements, creating a sound and scent journey that was as cosmic as its namesake.
“Scent is one of the most evocative senses when it comes to memory and has always been a big focus for us as we develop hotels. When you travel, you tend to remember smells more than anything, and revisiting those aromas sort of transports you back through your experiences,” said El Cosmico owner Liz Lambert.
The El Cosmico fragrance became favorite at El Cosmico Provision Co., both at the hotel’s shop in Marfa and online store. “When a person can’t make the trek to get out to Marfa, they can conjure a little memory of it wherever they are,” said Liz. The partnership was so successful that Far West, the arm of Liz’s operation that oversees retail development, embarked on a second fragrance with DS & Durga in 2020, aptly called Sweet Do Nothing. “El Cosmico is built on the idea that sometimes the best use of your time is to do absolutely nothing, a notion that Italians call Dolce Far Niente. Seemed like a name for the next phase of our collaboration, as a way to travel without having to leave home.”