Erin Kleinberg, founder of SIDIA, Photo Credit: Nicole Shapiro

Photo Credit: Nicole Shapiro

Fashion and fragrance have long been intertwined. Decades before today’s fragrance boom, Calvin Klein turned scents like CK One and Eternity into cultural moments, blurring the lines between fashion, identity and self-expression. CK One, in particular, helped popularize the idea of a gender-neutral fragrance long before the concept became mainstream.

Few founders understand that intersection better than Erin Kleinberg. Before launching the clean beauty and body care brand Sidia, Kleinberg was a co-founder of Coveteur, and built a career at the crossroads of fashion, media and culture. Today, she is also the founder of Métier Creative, the branding and creative agency behind campaigns and storytelling for some of North America's most recognizable brands.

"I came into this category through fashion," shares Kleinberg over a Zoom call last month. "When I’m building a fragrance, I’m almost approaching it the way a stylist approaches an outfit – thinking about layers, balance, emotion, and how different elements work together."

That perspective may help explain why Sidia has found itself at the center of one of beauty's fastest-growing movements.

Today, a new generation of consumers is approaching fragrance less like a beauty purchase and more like a fashion accessory. Rather than committing to a single signature scent, they’re building ‘fragrance wardrobes’: layering body mists, oils and perfumes to create combinations that reflect different moods, occasions and identities.

That shift in behavior is showing up across search and social media patterns. In its Pinterest Predicts 2026 report (released in December 2025), Pinterest identified "Scent Stacking" as one of the year’s defining beauty trends for Gen Z and millennials, forecasting a growing consumer desire for fragrance layering.

According to Pinterest internal data, global searches for "body mist perfume" surged 1,648% year-over-year (April-May 2025 vs. April-May 2026). Searches for "perfume and body mist combos" also climbed 47%, underscoring a growing interest in layering products and creating personalized scent identities rather than relying on a single signature fragrance.

The same behavior is showing up across social media. According to AI-powered influencer marketing platform Traackr, creator conversations around "Scent Stacking" increased 56% year-over-year, while content focused on "scent identity" rose 47%.

Few brands embody that shift more clearly than Sidia.

This summer, Sidia will take its biggest retail step yet with its launch into Sephora Canada, within its “Next Big Thing” assortment. Products will debut online on July 10 before arriving in stores on July 17.

In January 2022, Sidia introduced its first fragrance universe, through the launch of candles in Braless and Wired. Over time, those scents expanded into a broader assortment of hand serums, body washes, creams, solid perfumes, and body mists, helping transform the company from a body care company into a fragrance-led business. Each product was anchored by the fragrance first, which expanded into different formats.

Fragrance gradually emerged as the brand’s biggest opportunity.

“That’s when we started realizing that fragrance wasn’t just supporting the brand. It was becoming a central part of it,” shares Kleinberg.

Unlike traditional body sprays, Sidia’s body mists are featured in glass bottles and designed to live on a vanity rather than disappear into a gym bag, reflecting Kleinberg’s belief that fragrance should feel as considered as the rest of a person’s wardrobe. For consumers looking to layer and personalize their scent throughout the day, the brand also has solid perfumes: an on-the-go format that makes fragrance more portable, flexible and personal.

Today, sales are up approximately 490% year-over-year, while fragrance sales have increased 70% since the introduction of the brand’s body mist category.

Rather than forcing a category expansion, fragrance revealed itself over time. Early hits like The Hand Serum in 2022 followed by Solid Perfume in 2025 offered clues, while the breakout success of Braless Body Mist confirmed that consumers were connecting most deeply through scent.

Kleinberg followed the scent, so to speak, and doubled down on body mist and solids.

"The success of Braless really set Midas up to be a shining star. We were concerned that it might cannibalize Braless, but actually what it's done is elevate both of them. They're now neck-and-neck as our top-performing fragrances."

The success confirmed the brand’s suspicion: consumers are building fragrance rituals and wardrobes.

"Fragrance is a wardrobe for the self," says Kleinberg. “You can be Braless one day and Midas the next.”

The launch of Midas elevated awareness across the entire business.

According to Traackr, Sidia posts increased 187% month-over-month following Midas’ launch in February 2026, while the number of creators posting about the brand rose 106%.

For Kleinberg, Sidia’s growth was never driven by chasing trends.

"There was a point before Braless Body Mist where I thought, 'I’m just going to do what I think is right,’" she shares. "I'm a classically trained fashion stylist. I wanted to create imagery that would stand the test of time and build a universe that felt true to me."

That same gut feeling shaped Sidia’s retail strategy.

In an industry where many brands view Sephora as an early milestone, Kleinberg spent years building what she calls “cultural touchpoints” before pursuing a global beauty multi-brand retailer.

Rather than rushing into large-scale distribution, Sidia focused on what Kleinberg calls “cultural touchpoints” – showing up everywhere from Kith, Holt Renfrew and LuisaViaRoma to Hotel Chelsea Spa, Tracy Anderson, Chez Margaux, Crown Shy, and restaurant bathrooms across New York and Toronto.

"I really wanted to spend time building the foundation of the business," says Kleinberg. “A lot of founders launch DTC, go hard at that, and then get into Sephora. For us, our first big year of success came through small retailers and independent retailers.”

The strategy required patience and timing.

Looking back, Kleinberg believes the breakthrough came when she stopped chasing milestones and outside validation, and started trusting her own instincts as a brand builder.

For Kleinberg, the data was pointing in one direction. Her intuition was pointing there too.

“There was a certain point ahead of Braless body mist where I was listening to too much and to too many people,” she shares. “I said to myself, ‘I’m going to do what I think is right and create imagery that will stand the test of time.’”

"Once I let that fly, the world flocked," she adds.