David Apel

David Apel is an American perfumer born in 1959 in Ringwood, New Jersey. Raised amid the forests and coastlines of New England, he studied environmental chemistry before joining Givaudan in 1980, where he began analyzing fragrances through gas chromatography. That technical grounding shaped his creative philosophy: every perfume is a work in perpetual progress.

In 1991 he received the Young Perfumer Award from the American Society of Perfumers. Between 1993 and 1997 he worked as a fine fragrance perfumer in Paris at Fragrance Resources, an experience that broadened his perspective by contrasting his American sensibility with classical European tradition. He later returned to Givaudan as Executive Perfumer of Fine Fragrance.

In 2007 he joined Symrise, under which he signed more than 50 fragrances for brands including Tom Ford, Carolina Herrera, Jo Malone, and Sean John.