Modern Alchemy

Today BeansTalk met with Douglas Little of D.L. & Co. (“Modern Alchemists and Purveyors of Curious Goods”) at Fred Segal Studio. We were preoccupied with the fact that he greatly resembled a character from a film we liked quite a bit, “From Hell,” which starred Johnny Depp as an Absinthe-addicted policeman trying to unravel the mystery of Jack the Ripper. He also reminded us a lot of actor Patrick Bristow (you may note that he doesn’t look like Bristow at all in the photos included here, but he did to us in person).

Little is a fascinating character, a former beauty product designer turned perfumier, candle maker, lifestyle arbiter. He is, if you must know a fine fragrancer, graphic designer, installation artist, interior designer, illustrator, sculptor. But what he was presenting today were his luxury candles and completely custom fragrances. He started, only a year ago, with a run of 2,500 luxury candles, packaged in a round, miniature silk-encased hat-box. The fabric is hand-dyed Burmese silk and tied with a fat, black silk ribbon. The candle vessel, sculpted by Little based on an actual antique vessel he discovered, is scalloped glass.