Australian fragrance brand Dusk emerged on the retail landscape in 2000; now, the specialty scent and homeware retailer is in an era of reinvention. Dusk became a publicly listed company in 2020. Today, it has 145 stores in Australia and three in New Zealand — alongside a booming e-commerce business. When asked if there was an appetite to expand its brick-and-mortar footprint beyond Australia and New Zealand, Dusk CMO Jeremy Taylor referenced the pop star Justin Bieber: “Never say never,
never,” he told Inside Retail.
“There’s been a lot of newness to the brand, a rebirth of sorts and we want to make sure customers know we’re the experts in home fragrance.”
Dusk’s great rejuvenation
In early November, Dusk will launch its Christmas collection with a huge campaign and new-to-the-brand products.
“The Dusk customer would have never seen anything like it before,” Taylor said. “It is so wide.
“We’re playing in bath and body — we’ve got candles, obviously, at the heart of what we do and there is so much gifting.
“It’s going to be one of the first times customers walk into store and go, ‘Wow, Dusk is on this brand revolution.’”
Prior to joining the Dusk team, Tayor had an almost decade-long tenure at men’s fashion retailer Yd Australia, where he worked alongside Vlad Yakubson, then GM at Yd and now CEO at Dusk. Taylor touched on some similarities in both retailers’ strategies.
“The Dusk brand is going through a great rejuvenation,” he said.
“Ten years ago, Yd relied on heavy discounting, which is a similar story to Dusk at the moment.”
The approach that Taylor and Yakubson took to elevating the Yd brand is similar to what the dynamic duo has in mind for Dusk.
“We invested in product and the right marketing and content for Yd, which is what we’re doing at Dusk, to help rely less on discounting,” Taylor said.
“We’re still going to be a mid-market specialty brand, but elevated to make people fall in love with the brand, before a discount sign.
“We’re investing in having a more diverse product range in-store than what customers would previously have known as Dusk, and my role is to bring that marketing story to life, to help elevate the brand,” Taylor said.
A major part of the brand rejuvenation is investing in product and trialing new categories.
“Our Allen’s collaboration was one of the biggest we’ve had to date, from a success point of view,” Taylor said about Dusk’s recent partnership with the heritage Australian confectionery brand.
Taylor is just one of the new team members brought on board to support Dusk’s brand rejuvenation.
“Vlad, our CEO, and the business have invested in talent, and we’ve got a lot of new talent in the business, especially within the product team,” he added.
They will ensure new products inspired by social trends are “brought to life in the Dusk way for the customer,” Taylor said.
Dinner with Dusk
Taylor described Dusk’s core customer profile as house-proud, home-fragrance lovers that enjoy the “everyday indulgent pieces at an affordable price.”
In August, Dusk released its ‘Dinner Club’ collection featuring European-inspired fragrances housed in reusable vessels. It showcased the fragrance and homeware brand’s next iteration of product offerings.
“‘Dinner Club’ is where we’re trialing new product categories. It’s come from a global trend where our design team travels the world and picks up the trends that we try to bring to life for our customers,” Taylor said.
One of the big trends on TikTok consists of people gathering to host dinner parties. “To be able to do that, the products, like candles and tablescaping, is huge,” Taylor said.
“The range consists of all those things, but fragrance being the heart of what we do, there are some great new on-trend fragrance profiles that we’ve never had before.
“We’ve got a talented fragrance expert in the team, but with ‘Dinner Club’, a lot of the fragrances have a more herbaceous and fresh profile.
“Dusk customers are used to that sweet, what we call gourmand, fragrance profile in our business.
“To be able to have a range of candles that appeal to both men and women and this new customer profile has been exciting.”
Part of the new Dusk brand is being made in Australia.
“We’ve got so much going on at the moment,” Taylor said.
Inspired by Australia’s backyard, Dusk’s newest drop ‘Our Backyard’ is hand-poured in Sydney.
“We’ve had a few ranges come out that have got that Sydney-made handwriting to them,” Taylor said.
“We’ve got a diverse supply chain, currently our in-house design team are all based in Sydney, including the scent smith, who does the fragrances for the products,” he finished.