Best Chicago DJ bottling music into scent

Zernell Gillie

I first heard of Zernell Gillie when midwest perfumer Alie Kiral (Pearfat Parfum) mentioned him on Instagram, which led me to discover his fragrance House, a lush scent named for the homegrown electronic music style. One whiff and I was back at Smartbar in 2016 with my husband, bodies in motion under the dance-floor lights, the air filled with the scent of florals and warm woods which—like the DJ’s pulsating rhythms—felt sensual, not sweet. Gillie, who is also a professional DJ, channels that spirit across his fragrance line; House opens with aged raspberry and Hawaiian sandalwood, before darker drops of oud and saffron emerge.

Gillie came of age in the 80s, raised on MTV and Hot Mix 5 on the city’s west side. As a teen who wanted to stand out from the crowd, he chose the leathery Halston Z14 cologne while everyone else wore Drakkar Noir or Polo Green—when he wasn’t sneaking spritzes of his dad’s Pierre Cardin before church. 

Gillie’s passion for fragrance grew stronger after moving to Budapest with his family. He told me he’d visit perfume boutiques while on tour in Europe, hunting down niche bottles in cities like Paris and London. The family moved back to the U.S. just before the COVID pandemic. After the clubs shut down, Gillie launched his line with his debut fragrance Disco—named for the first genre he DJed—in 2022. His first run of one hundred bottles sold out in three days. Gillie has since released six more scents. Each one is named after a different genre with Chicago roots, like a love letter to the city’s sounds. He told me his goal is to bring people joy each time they smell his work, and he develops each formula as meticulously as he builds tracks at his DJ sets. Jazz took 42 versions to finalize. He traces the inspiration for Blues, which is anchored by a note of ebony wood, back to the music he’d hear at Chicago blues venues in early 90s Chicago.

In a fragrance world that treats geography like a luxury stamp, Gillie, who is currently based in LA but frequently returns to his hometown, keeps it local on purpose: “I wanted to make sure I highlighted that Chicago is my own.” He told me, “I wouldn’t be doing this fragrance, this line, if it wasn’t for my experiences in Chicago.”

Zernell Gillie
 zernellgillie.com

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IR À LOJA

✔ Compra protegida
✔ Frete rápido
✔ Vários vendedores

✔ Preços baixos
✔ Cupons frequentes
✔ Grande variedade

Editor’s note: March 2026 Best of Chicago issue