Francis Kurkdjian: Creating a Fragrance Wardrobe with People in Mind

A Life in Perfumery

Perfume is something that allows us to preserve our humanity in a world that takes it away from us.

Francis Kurkdjian

Early Life

Born on May 14, 1969, in Gournay-sur-Marne, east of Paris, France, Kurkdjian came from a family whose Armenian grandparents had fled the massacres in the Ottoman Empire and emigrated to France.
His paternal grandfather traded in furs, his maternal grandfather was a bespoke tailor, his grandmother loved classical music, his mother sang, and his father was a composer and pianist. Art and fashion were part of everyday life. From the age of six, Kurkdjian attended piano and ballet lessons, and for a time he aspired to become a ballet dancer.

Kurkdjian says his earliest scent memories are the cooking spices in his grandmother’s room, Rochas’s Femme (1944, Edmond Roudnitska), and the Madame Rochas (1960, Guy Robert) that his mother wore. At thirteen or fourteen, he read an article about the perfume industry in the terminology section of a French magazine and learned that perfumers existed. He also discovered that couturiers and fashion designers did not create their perfumes themselves. Around the same time, he watched Le Sauvage, a film centered on a perfumer played by Yves Montand, which further drew him to fragrance creation and inspired him to become a perfumer.

Perfume chose me.

Francis Kurkdjian

Quick to act, Kurkdjian immediately looked for a school where he could study perfumery and discovered the prestigious ISIPCA. At fifteen, he visited with his parents and asked the director whether he could enroll. He was, of course, too young, and entered at the age of twenty instead.

There is a connection between dance and perfume: the concepts of space, air, and the body. A dancer must command the space when appearing onstage. Music must make the air vibrate to reach the ear. Perfume needs both. To exist and be noticed by others, it must occupy space and be carried by the air. It is also connected to body language. Just as you use your body to play an instrument or move your body in ballet, perfume rests on the skin.

Francis Kurkdjian

After beginning his training at ISIPCA in 1990, he undertook a two-month internship with Pierre Dinand in 1991 as part of the course. There he met a woman wearing a wonderful scent unlike anything he had smelled before. When he spoke to her, he learned that her husband was Olivier Cresp, and she was wearing a trial version of Thierry Mugler’s Angel.

After graduating in 1993, he joined Quest. Remarkably, encouraged by his father’s belief that he could not make a living from perfume alone, he also studied after work and on weekends at the Institut Superieur de Marketing du Luxe for a master’s degree in luxury-brand marketing. He wrote a thesis on the luxury industry, and the CEO of Jean Paul Gaultier’s fragrance division, Chantal Roos, awarded him his diploma. She returned his thesis with her business card attached. This became one of the turning points in his life.

Roos asked the fledgling perfumer whether he would like to take part in a Gaultier project as part of his training, as an apprentice. Kurkdjian immediately said yes and submitted his own trial formula. After eight months of hard work, one of his signature creations, Le Male, was born. His first perfume, commissioned when he was twenty-five, launched in France in October 1995. Kurkdjian recalls that it later overtook Eau Sauvage, which had led the French market for nearly forty years, to take the number-one sales position in France.

I am someone who follows instinct. With people or things, I often have a feeling about what will happen. In fact, I often emailed Françoise Caron, one of the perfumers I worked with for a long time, to tell her that a project we had made together would succeed. And very often, I was right.

Francis Kurkdjian

He was then transferred to Quest’s New York office, where he spent four years creating perfumes for various brands, including Elizabeth Arden. He also made deodorants, reportedly with great success. After returning to Paris in the 2000s, he opened an atelier in 2001 to create custom-made perfumes under his own name, the first perfumer to do so. This became the bespoke fragrance service that continues at his house today. That same year, he received the Prix François Coty.

In 2005, he moved to Takasago. In 2008, France awarded him the distinction of Chevalier in recognition of his contribution to perfumery.

Then, in 2009, he finally founded his own house.

Perhaps I am not an artist, because I do not think a perfumer who creates fragrances to be worn is an artist.

Francis Kurkdjian

Maison Francis Kurkdjian

You could say that my ideal job was to become an in-house perfumer at Chanel or Hermès. But no such position came my way. Other, more talented perfumers were invited, of course, but no one called me. So I always felt like a supporting player. That is precisely why I was able to be young and energetic, meet Marc, and decide that we should do something together. (July 2020)

Francis Kurkdjian

Official website: English (Japanese distributor: here)

In 2009, Kurkdjian established his own house, Maison Francis Kurkdjian (MFK), with Mark Chaya.

Mark Chaya: Behind the Success

The meeting between MFK co-founder and CEO Mark Chaya and Francis Kurkdjian dates back to 2003. Over dinner after a Jean Paul Gaultier fashion show, Chaya learned not only Kurkdjian’s name but also, for the first time, that the profession of perfumer existed. When he discovered that Kurkdjian had created Gaultier’s Le Male and perfumes for at least forty global brands, including Dior, Armani, and Saint Laurent, he asked him:
“How on earth did I not even know your name? You create all the perfumes that everyone wears, yet nobody knows who you are.”

To me, the parallel between perfume and art was obvious. It was as if you went to a Picasso exhibition, but no one told you that the painter was Picasso: all you knew was the sponsor’s name.

Mark Chaya

The two immediately hit it off and became close. Chaya, then a partner at Ernst & Young, one of the world’s Big Four accounting firms, began supporting Kurkdjian on weekends and weekday evenings. In 2009, they launched the luxury perfume house MFK.

In 2017, they sold a majority stake to LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), becoming part of the group.

An Obsession with Quality

MFK is not a luxury brand; it is a quality brand. I am obsessed with quality at every stage, from the paperboard used in the packaging and its dimensions to the proportions of the cap and bottle and the texture of a cream. If the quality is good enough, it does not matter that it is expensive.

Francis Kurkdjian

1. Color: Kurkdjian says Paris is a major source of inspiration. He expresses its gray rooftops and the glow of the setting sun through lead-gray tones and gold. The zinc bottle caps have an uneven coloration, so no two are identical.

2. The Flacon: Its silhouette draws on the church domes that rise here and there above the Paris skyline when seen from the Eiffel Tower or Montmartre. The square flacon has crystalline facets; the glassmaker was asked to create angles that would not look too aggressive, but would seem alive. A small monogram of the house’s signature logo appears on the back.

3. The Spray: It is designed to become invisible inside the bottle after the first spray, so that it does not distract from the perfume.

4. Ingredients: There are certain materials he will not add to a composition until he has found what he considers the finest quality. Frankincense and myrrh are examples. (May 2021)

A Fragrance Wardrobe

Their thinking about MFK’s fragrances is simple: people today have many different faces. They do not show the same face at work, with friends or family, or when traveling. Sometimes they want a sophisticated wardrobe; at other times, casual clothes. MFK perfumes are made in the same spirit, with different occasions in mind. Behind this is also a wish to free women from the marketing strategy that tells them to find one signature perfume for life.

Created by Kurkdjian and Chaya, who consider wearing the same scent every day outdated, MFK is an undeniably fascinating house: it quickly embraces trends and creates what people want through high-quality, distinctive fragrances. It is fascinating because trend-led scents are often uninteresting, while houses that create distinctive fragrances tend to dislike trends.

Every fragrance in the Maison Francis Kurkdjian collection is created to suit a particular sensual mood, to match the aura you want to project on a particular occasion.

Mark Chaya

In 2017, Marc Chaya outlined the fragrance wardrobe as follows.

The Shirt

Fragrances: Aqua Collection

The image: an essential part of the wardrobe, like a sharp, crisp white shirt you can wear at any time. Button it up and dress it with a bow tie and tuxedo, or roll up the sleeves and pair it with casual khaki trousers. These scents are fresh, genderless, and versatile.

The Aqua Collection is a contemporary tribute to traditional eau de cologne. Kurkdjian set out to reinterpret this pleasant, good-smelling form of perfume. The result was the Aqua family: Aqua Universalis, Aqua Vitae, and Aqua Celestia.

Ready-to-Wear

Fragrances: À la rose, Petit Matin, Amyris, and Pluriel

The image: an exceptionally elegant ready-to-wear collection that is also an easy-to-wear wardrobe.

Evening Dress

Fragrances: Baccarat Rouge 540, Grand Soir, Lumière Noire, and the Oud Collection

The image: a wardrobe for evenings when you dress up. Each fragrance has a distinctive character that can become a signature.

Haute Couture

Bespoke fragrances created through direct exchanges with Kurkdjian. Prices start at €20,000.

A telephone conversation covers fragrance preferences, personality, surroundings, tastes, memories, and more, after which a quotation is prepared based on the client’s wishes. A face-to-face meeting then establishes a clear framework for the project. The scent is defined in greater detail, and the first trial is delivered a few weeks later. The sample is 5 ml. The client tries it in everyday life, experiencing the whole fragrance rather than just its top notes, with several rounds of revisions and discussion before the final decision.

Laundry Products

While living in the United States, Kurkdjian smelled the strong scents of fabric softeners such as Tide and Downy. As a perfumer, he felt that they interfered with his daily work, which was one reason he created Aqua Universalis laundry products. He had intended to devote considerable effort to laundry products, even presenting the idea to P&G and traveling to Belgium for a meeting. In the end, they did not understand his vision, so he launched the products through his own house, where they became very popular.

Collaborations

MFK has collaborated with various artists on many interesting projects. Here we look at the collaboration with Fendi, but he has also created the smell of money, scented soap bubbles, and a reconstruction of Marie Antoinette’s perfume. I think this is where Francis Kurkdjian’s art lies. (Find out more here.)

In December 2019, Fendi, another house within LVMH, succeeded in transforming the Baguette, created by Silvia Fendi in 1997, into a scented Baguette, after three full years of work with Francis Kurkdjian. But how could they add a fragrance to a leather bag?

At first, with Fendi’s permission, Kurkdjian tried soaking its finest calf leather, Cuoio Romano, in perfume for several days or weeks.
This did not work, so he turned to Christelle Boulé, with whom he had collaborated before. Fascinated by the world of scent, she had developed a technique for literally photographing fragrance. Her art was created by placing a few drops of perfume on silver photographic paper, letting it dry, exposing it to light, and immersing it in photographic developing liquid.

With Boulé’s help, Kurkdjian succeeded in printing fragrance onto leather. He composed Fendi Frenesia Yellow, a leather-and-musk scent exclusively for the Baguette, and printed it onto yellow Baguette and Nano Baguette bags. The scented bags, produced at the time in a limited edition of ten each for men and women, were very well received. In September 2020, the collaboration returned with a pink Baguette scented with rose.

How He Composes

My inspiration is not driven by raw materials. Classical and modern art, couture, and lifestyles inspire me. But I always try to focus on universal emotions, because they must be ideas that people around the world can understand in their own language and connect with emotionally.

Timeless elegance is something everyone understands, even though it can be expressed in many different ways.

Francis Kurkdjian

When an idea first comes to Kurkdjian, he expresses it in the perfume’s name. He places great importance on the name because it defines the framework of the work.
Once it is decided, he imagines a specific scent that suits it and begins writing the formula.

He follows this approach for every house, using code names when composing outside his own brand. Gaultier’s Le Male, for example, was “New Beat,” while Eau Noire, created with Hedi Slimane, was “Lavande Noire.” Giving each fragrance a name allows him to return immediately to the right creative mood even when working on many projects at once.

I was looking forward to seeing what Kurkdjian would create when freed from clients’ wishes and time constraints. Unfortunately, like many perfumers, he seems to work best toward a goal set by an art director, listening to the judgments of an evaluator.

Tania Sanchez

A Major Appointment as an In-House Perfumer

I am not interested in being an in-house perfumer. Ten years ago, I would have wanted it desperately. Really! I am forty-four now. Apart from Chanel’s Olivier Polge, all the in-house perfumers are older than me. Basically, becoming an in-house perfumer is like retiring.

Francis Kurkdjian (interview published in 2016)

In 2021, news sent shock waves through the perfume industry: François Demachy, who had created fragrances as Christian Dior’s in-house perfumer, was retiring, and Francis Kurkdjian would become the second person to hold the position.

He began working as Dior’s perfumer on October 18, 2021.

According to an interview, Dior had always been part of his life. His grandparents married in the church opposite Dior’s flagship boutique in Paris; his mother’s best friend worked with Monsieur Dior; his father wore Eau Sauvage; and he himself admired Dominique Issermann, who worked on the advertising for Dune.

The art directors Tania Sanchez refers to are currently, at Dior, Kim Jones for menswear and Maria Grazia Chiuri for womenswear. While I look forward to Kurkdjian’s future creations with renewed anticipation, I also feel a little sad at the thought that he might be looking toward retirement.

By the Way…

My favorite place in the world is Naoshima in Japan. Or anywhere I can gather with friends and family.

Francis Kurkdjian

・Favorite womenswear designers: Yves Saint Laurent and Azzedine Alaïa

・Favorite menswear designers: Hedi Slimane during his Dior years, Rick Owens, Tomas Maier, and Johnson Hartig

・His protégés at Takasago include Jérôme Di Marino, who has composed for Molton Brown, among others, and Nicolas Bonneville, who has composed for Rosine and Jo Malone, among others.

・He used to smoke.

・He always keeps the people who wear his perfumes in mind, and in many interviews he discusses basics such as how to wear fragrance.

Perfume Creations

My favorite scent in the world is the smell of the neck of someone I love.
And, like everyone else, my least favorite is the smell of kitchen waste. [Laughs.]

Francis Kurkdjian

Year	Brand	Name	With
1995～2021	Jean Paul Gaultier	Classique Intense、Fleur du Male、Fragile、Gaultier2、Le Beau Male、Le Male、Ma Dame、Monsieur Eau du Matin、Ultra Male
1998	Demeter	Pruning Shears
1998	Axe / Lynx	Apollo
1999	Elizabeth Arden	Green Tea
2000	Escada	Lily Chic
2001	Elizabeth Arden	Green Tea Summer、Spiced Green Tea
2001	Gloria Vanderbilt	Reverie	Christine Nagel
2001	Lancome	Miracle Homme
2002	Giorgio Armani	Mania for men
2002	Yves Saint Laurent	Kouros Eau d’Ete
2003	Joop	Muse
2003	Narciso Rodriguez	For Her	Christine Nagel
2003	Versace	Jeans Couture Glam
2004	Acqua di Parma	Iris Nobile	Françoise Caron
2004	Christian Dior	Eau Noire、Cologne Blanche
2004	Emanuel Ungaro	Apparition	Françoise Caron
2004	Van Cleef&Arpels	Les Saisons Automne、Les Saisons Ete
2005	Guerlain	Rose Barbare
2006	Guerlain	Eau de Lit (home fragrance)
2006	Lanvin	Rumeur
2006	Parfums MDCI	Enlevement au Serail、Promesse de l’Aube、Rose de Siwa
2006	Salvatore Ferragamo	F de Ferragamo
2007	Christian Dior	Dior Homme Cologne
2007	Juliette Has A Gun	Lady Vengeance、Miss Charming
2007	Narciso Rodriguez	For Him
2007	Salvador Dali	Purplelight
2008	Kenzo	Eau de Fleur de Magnolia
2009	Demeter	Holy Water
2009	Kenzo	Eau de Fleur de Prunier	Jean Jacques
2013	Guess	Night	Antoine Lie
2013	Roger & Gallet	Fleur de Figuier
2014	Yves Rocher	Collection Été
2015	Nina Ricci	L’Extase
2016	Kenzo	World
2017	Davidoff	Cool Water Wave	Antoine Lie & Jean Jacques
2017	Kenzo	World Intense	Maïa Lernout
2018	Lolita Lempicka	LolitaLand
2011～2021	Elie Saab	Cuir Absolu、Cuir Bourbon、Cuir Patchouli、Cuir Ylang、Essence No. 1 Rose、Essence No. 2 Gardenia、Essence No. 3 Ambre、Essence No. 4 Oud、Essence No. 6 Vetiver、Essence No. 7 Neroli、Essence No. 8 Santal、Essence No. 9 Tubéreuse、Le Parfum、Le Parfum In White (with Jérôme Di Marino)、Le Parfum L’Eau Couture、Le Parfum Resort Collection、Le Parfum Resort Collection 2017、Le Parfum Rose Couture、Le Parfum Lumiere
2013～2016	Carven	L’Eau de Toilette、L’Eau Intense (with Jérôme Di Marino)、Le Parfum、Pour Homme (with Patricia Choux)
2014～2019	Burberry	Amber Heath、Antique Oak、Garden Roses、Hawthorn Bloom、Her、Her Blossom、Her Intense、High Tide、Mr. Burberry、My Burberry、My Black、My Blush、Tudor Rose、Wild Thistle

To explore further, follow the links below.
View on Parfumo
View on Fragrantica