Sudhir Gupta purchased his first factice in the '90s for $2,000. Today, he has amassed more than 3,000 of the perfume bottle replicas — and has a Guinness World Record under his belt to prove it.
“Some would say it was love at first sight,” said Gupta of the first factice he laid his eyes on. It was a Nina Ricci L’air du Temps factice, and he came across it while dusting the basement of a perfume shop on Canal Street that he worked at to put himself through graduate school upon coming to the U.S. in the early ‘90s.
From then on, Gupta sourced the bottles where and when he could, trying his luck at flea markets, pharmacies like Lascoff Drugs and department stores such as Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus, making friends along the way who indulged his passion, helping him expand his collection via under-the-table exchanges.
While Gupta feels his stint at the perfume shop was a stroke of “destiny,” he ended up leaving shortly after purchasing the L’air du Temps factice, instead making a living independently buying and reselling hard-to-find fragrances, a gig that allowed him more avenues and freedom to grow his collection.