We recently connected with Dan Lang and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Dan, thanks for joining us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

Vacations are what keep my creativity alive. Not only are they the inspiration for some of my scents for WILE… they are also what let me set my mind free. Everyone needs to take a break at some point before burnout takes a major toll. As a small business and creative it is hard to step away, but in the end, mental health has to be a priority.

Dan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ll keep this short and simple. I started off my journey as a Division I athlete studying to be a dentist. After a few years, I realized the only thing that would make me happy was a more creative route in life. I moved to NYC where I studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology. My degree is in Package Design and Branding. Over the years I designed for a variety of different categories such as personal care, food and beverage, and currently beauty. Throughout this time, I needed my own personal creative outlet where I could be my own client. And this is where WILE was started… my provocative, unpolished, and raw perfume brand.

With WILE I channel all of my own talents from package design, graphic design, and photography to tell the stories of each scent. To me, this brand will continue evolving and growing to match my creative journey and allow me to share my stories with my customers and supporters. I strive to make the scents different from what is currently on the market and to always have some kind of unexpected twist. Quality and detail will always be a core brand value with the idea of mixing chemistry with art and design.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I do have my products manufactured. All of this was completely new to me from the start, but I had some basic knowledge from my background in beauty and packaging. I interviewed manufacturers all around the world until I found the one that matched my vision of creating raw, unique, non-commercial fragrances. I wanted to make sure they understood the idea of niche perfumery and could take my briefs and complete them in a high-quality manner. One note on manufacturing is no matter how prepared and organized you are… there will always be something that is out of your control and there will be mishaps. But you just have to keep going and push forward without getting too discouraged.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

WILE is truly a passion to me and I speak about it with my heart to anyone and everyone. There is so much storytelling behind my brand and the whole reason for the brand was to share myself with customers through my products. I use social media as my main area to grow my clientele. I try to attend industry gatherings like scent events to connect with people who share the same passion. Outside of these things, I have an amazing sales team that helps me with my retail partners.

Contact Info:

• Website: wilescents.com
• Instagram: wilescents

Image Credits
Dan Lang, Harrison Sheehan, Joe Caster