Van Dang Fragrances Lands at Saks Fifth Avenue, Signs German Distributor

Van Dang Fragrances launches at Saks Fifth Avenue, entering online at saksfifthavenue.com and in-store at two flagship doors: Fifth Avenue in New York and Brickell in Miami.

The brand confirmed the rollout includes its full assortment. That spans the home fragrance line — candles, reed diffusers, room and linen mists, and crystal meditation sets — plus the extraits de parfum collection, which debuted in April 2025 alongside a nationwide wholesale launch at Neiman Marcus. Van Dang Fragrances first appeared at Bergdorf Goodman in 2021.

Cofounders Kim-Van Dang, a former beauty editor and fragrance distributor, and her husband, Anthony Roberts, built the brand through the same luxury retail relationships they cultivated for roughly two decades at their sales and distribution company, KVDAR Inc. There, they distributed and grew both Maison Francis Kurkdjian and Cire Trudon in the U.S. market.

Why the brand skipped the boutique route

Most indie fragrance brands start small and climb. Van Dang did the opposite.

"For an indie brand, our strategy is very different from most indie brands," Dang said. "They usually start in small boutiques and then build up, whereas we started at the top because that's just what we know. Those were our partners for a long time."

When the couple moved to national wholesale for their own label, they went directly to retailers they already knew. Those doors are where their target consumers shop, Dang said.

What does TikTok change for the category?

Interest in fragrance is rising on TikTok, driven largely by influencers. Dang said the platform is pulling a new, younger audience into the category and erasing old stigmas around perfume — but the traffic still lands in the same places.

"A lot of TikTok influencers kicked this off, and surprisingly enough, it's bringing a whole new, younger audience into the realm, and that stigma of perfume is gone," she said. "[That said], they are going into the department stores. I'm meeting them at Neiman and at Saks."

For a brand anchored in luxury department stores, that means social-driven discovery converts into physical-door sales rather than displacing them.

Where the brand goes next

Van Dang Fragrances has inked its first international distributor, On.Brand, a company based in Germany. The deal signals the start of a broader global push.

"We'll be starting up with Mexico as well, and we are in talks with a lot of other European countries right now, as well as China," Dang said. "So, global expansion is the next big thing."

The brand is also preparing to enter the Middle East with three rich, oud-based scents. That launch marks its first product-line expansion since the extraits de parfum collection.

With Saks secured, a German distributor signed and oud scents in development, Van Dang Fragrances is now positioned to test whether a top-down U.S. retail strategy can scale into a global indie fragrance player.

By Daniel Okafor