October 8th, 2026Phuong Dang: The art of returning to yourself
“Over the years, I have come to understand that some of the most important things in life cannot be seen, only felt.
“We spend so much of our lives focused on the outside world — building, achieving, creating, caring for others — yet the quality of our lives is ultimately shaped by the inner states we return to most often each day. For me, scent has always been one of the most powerful ways to return to myself.
“Long before I understood why, I was drawn to the invisible language of fragrance. A single breath could bring back an intention, shift a feeling, soften a difficult moment, or reconnect me to something I had forgotten within myself. As an artist, I have always been fascinated by emotion, beauty and the human experience. Perfume became another medium through which I could explore these invisible worlds, transforming feeling into form, and creating experiences that speak beyond words.
“I work with some of the world’s most respected perfumers and the finest raw materials to create fragrances that are both beautiful and meaningful. Not simply exquisite scents to wear, but sensory rituals designed to accompany the moments that shape our lives. Each creation begins with a feeling. A state. A question about what it means to be fully alive, fully present and fully ourselves.”
The words above come from Phuong Dang’s book, offering a glimpse into the inner world of the artist and perfume founder. Who are these words for? Perhaps the world. Perhaps those curious to know the woman behind the fragrances, or those who already know and love her work.
Phuong is something of an enigma. She can be mysterious and a little cryptic, yet in person she is strikingly down-to-earth, with a hearty laugh and a thousand-watt smile. Serious, but fun. Strong, but surprisingly soft.
The Paradise Point resident, who turns 50 this year, grew up in Vietnam and left for London in her early 20s to step into the heady worlds of fine art and high fashion. It was exciting, glamorous and full of possibility. But beneath it all, she was still a very young woman, far from home, finding her feet in a life that was new to her.
Scent became part of how she found her bearings. Not simply for its beauty, but for what it could evoke and how quickly it could shift the way she felt. “A scent can transport us to a feeling, a moment or an intention, before we have time to explain it or the mind has caught up,” she says. “Throughout my life as an artist and creator, I have worked across many mediums — painting, sculpture, make-up, photography and design — all in the search for ways to express beauty, feeling and the complexity of human experience. Yet over time, perfume became one of the most intimate forms of expression I had ever encountered because scent moves differently. Often, it reaches us before words.”
London was exciting, but it was also overwhelming. “When I left Vietnam for London in my early 20s, I entered a world that was exciting, beautiful and creatively alive, but also deeply overwhelming at times,” Phuong says. “From the outside, my life looked glamorous, but internally, I often felt disconnected from myself. At the time, I did not yet have language for what I was experiencing. I only knew I was searching for something that could bring me back to myself.”
It was during those years that Phuong created The Calling, her first scent. She made it herself in London, with no formal training. She made it because she needed it, something grounding, something that reminded her of the confidence, strength and sense of purpose already within her when life around her felt lonely and overwhelming.
“Wearing The Calling became an everyday ritual,” she says. “Not to escape, but to return to myself. I realised we are not just informed by our experiences, but also by the inner state from which we experience them. The same conversation, opportunity or challenge can feel completely different, and lead to entirely different outcomes, depending on the state we bring to it.”
That early experiment would eventually become something far bigger than Phuong imagined. “A fragrance cannot choose our state for us,” she says. “But it can become an anchor for the state we choose to return to, and from that place, become who we choose.”
In 2016, Phuong took the leap from private experimentation to the international perfume world, launching a collection of 10 fragrances exclusively at Barneys New York. The collection of extrait de parfums, bearing her own name, used very high concentrations of raw materials sourced from around the world — including rare oud from Vietnam, black pepper from Madagascar, frankincense from Somalia and roses from Turkey and Morocco.
She designed the bottles herself. Minimal and sculptural, with the sensibility of an art object, they were hand-blown by a master glassmaker in France and finished with a weighty, satin-smooth metal cap. At Barneys’ Madison Avenue and Beverly Hills stores, the perfumes commanded luxury prices: from US$300 to US$450 for 50ml and US$450 to US$650 for 100ml. A discovery collection of all 10 fragrances in 10ml vials retailed for US$380. For someone who had entered perfumery without conventional training, Phuong was suddenly working at its highest levels.
She collaborated with internationally renowned master perfumers Bertrand Duchaufour and Mark Buxton, approaching fragrance much as she approached her art — through emotion, intention and creative exchange.
The collection went on to reach more than 10 countries, carried by some of the world’s most prestigious luxury retailers, including Harrods in London, Harvey Nichols in Dubai, TSUM in Moscow and Ludwig Beck in Munich.
It also attracted an international following among collectors, celebrities and members of royal families, alongside coverage in The New York Times, Vogue and O, the Oprah Magazine. The scent Artist was named among the top five perfumes in the world at the FiFi Awards.
From the outside, it was the kind of success most founders dream about. But success, Phuong admits, had another side. There was a lot of pressure. Responsibility. The constant need to keep moving. And then everything stopped. Barneys collapsed. Covid followed. Borders closed, international travel came to a standstill and all physical retail around the world ground to a halt. For a fragrance house built around the deeply physical experience of discovering scent, the impact was profound. The business paused. And so did Phuong.
For years, her world had revolved around her perfume. She had poured so much of herself into it — her creativity, her ambition, her way of seeing and feeling the world — that somewhere along the way, the perfume had become more than her work. It had become part of who she was. So when everything stopped, she didn’t only lose the momentum of a business. She lost a part of her identity.
For the first time in years, there was nowhere to run. Only inward. What initially felt like an ending slowly became something else. Space. Away from the momentum. Away from the constant doing. Away from the identity she had built around her work. She began to question what success really meant to her. What remained when the achievements became quiet. And, perhaps more importantly, what she wanted the next part of her life to feel like.
Eventually, Phuong made Australia home, settling on the Gold Coast. The pace was different. So was she. The pause then became less about what she had lost and more about what she came to understand. Phuong began studying emotional regulation, transformation, human performance and the relationship between scent, emotion and identity. And slowly, she began looking at the perfumes she had created years earlier through different eyes. They were still exquisitely beautiful.
But perhaps beauty was not the whole story. Now Phuong is preparing to bring her perfumes back to the world. Not because she wants to recreate 2016. Quite the opposite. She is turning 50. She has experienced success, disruption, reinvention and the uncomfortable space between who we were and who we are becoming.
“I think when you are younger, you are always trying to become special,” she says. “You achieve something and then you think, what is next? But eventually you realise freedom is not always about adding more. Sometimes it is about coming back to yourself, continuing to grow, and asking what you can give.”
That thinking sits behind the new chapter of Phuong Dang Perfumes. At a time when many people live with an almost relentless stream of information, uncertainty, responsibilities and expectations, Phuong has become interested in a deceptively simple question:
How do you want to feel as you meet your life? Not how should you feel. Not how should you appear. How do you choose to meet it? For Phuong, perfume cannot make that decision for us. But it can become a deeply personal, sensory reminder of the choice we have made. A spray. A breath. A moment to return. And become.
Her new 8 States of Freedom collection, created once again with Bertrand Duchaufour and Mark Buxton, brings together rare ingredients and exceptional craftsmanship with this deeper meaning and purpose.
The eight fragrances are Vigor, Artist, Believing, Craving, Leather Up, Obscure Oud, The Calling and Untamed Oud. Each represents a different inner state.
Together, they form what Phuong describes not simply as a perfume collection, but as a wardrobe of states — fragrances chosen not only for how you want to smell, but for how you want to feel, how you want to meet the moment, and who you choose to be.
For Phuong, that idea ultimately reaches beyond perfume. It is about how we live. How we relate to ourselves. How we meet what happens to us. And, eventually, how we meet one another. “There are three relationships that shape our lives,” she says.
“The relationship we have with ourselves, the relationship we have with life, and the relationship we have with other people. When you begin to appreciate yourself, something shifts. You begin to appreciate life differently, not only the beautiful moments, but the difficult ones too.
“And from there, you begin to see other people differently. You care more.” There is something quietly revealing in those words. After decades spent creating, achieving and building a life across countries and creative worlds, Phuong doesn’t dwell on her achievements. She talks about freedom. About enjoying life. About continuing to grow. About creating work that means something. And, increasingly, about what she can contribute.
“Life can be very challenging, but we keep growing,” she says. “When we stop growing, we die inside. I feel very lucky. I’ve had the chance to learn, to change, to become more myself. And now, I feel freer. Free to do what I love. To create something beautiful and meaningful and share it. To lift others. To give back.”
And perhaps, at 50, that is Phuong Dang’s real calling. Not to become someone else. But to have the freedom to be fully herself.
Discover Phuong Dang Perfumes and join the Private Inner Circle at www.phuongdang.com Members receive Phuong’s book, Liquid Emotions, as an exclusive gift, along with private access to the world of Phuong Dang Perfumes. Words: Donna Kelly & contributed | Images: Contributed
