Interview with Francis Kurkdjian, Master Perfumer
April 15, 2016
I’ve always been a one scent type of girl, day or night, dressy or casual, summer or winter… it didn’t matter to me. I’ve had a total of two perfumes over the past 10 years (and only found the second one because my first one was discontinued). I feel like I once read that women should have one scent, a signature perfume and that was the end all. But meeting Francis Kurkdjian changed that forever.
Francis’ feeling on perfume is that it is much like our wardrobe. We wouldn’t wear the same thing to workout, attend meetings, and then have a nice dinner on the town, right? The same thing goes for scent, and the modern woman should have a wardrobe of perfumes for the variety of experiences, emotions and times in our lives.
Francis is one of the youngest perfumers in the business, at age 26, he created Le Male for Jean Paul Gaultier, which launched his career and creations with brands such as Burberry, Dior, Escada, Guerlain, Giorgio Armani, Lanvin, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent and many more. He now has his own luxury fragrance house, Maison Francis Kurkdjian in Paris that is a leader in niche fragrances and has expanded with shower gel, lotion and bubbles.
I had the opportunity to sit down with this charming olfactory genius at Neiman Marcus Fashion Show to talk about his opinion on a new scent for a wedding, how to wear perfume during different seasons, and even his experience in recreating Marie Antoinette’s perfume!
S: I know that you’ve talked about in the past, how fragrances are about different emotions, wardrobes etc. How do you feel about a new fragrance for a day like a wedding day? Do you feel like a woman should - and maybe even a man - find something that really defines that special day?
F: The wedding day is very personal because maybe you could have the scent you were wearing if you were on a date that night, if you met on a date, maybe you could wear the same fragrance you had on the date. I’m working on - it’s really you guy’s wedding - because I’m working on something for– creating a wedding box for women. Because I love that tradition here in the US, something blue, something old, something borrowed, the one penny cent in your shoe. I love that story because I think it’s something very– not cute, but I love traditions. The idea is to bring something new into traditions. I’m working on the box dedicated to wedding. Then I have clients - they can afford to have a special scent. I’ve done scent and perfume for both the couple for the wedding. They have his and hers. I even made one where they put the notes together. They’re kind of links between the scent and all that. I think a wedding day’s important that you have to wear something that you are super comfortable to wear because it’s such a day with so many drama sometimes, and so many uncertainty and so many stressful that you have to wear– to me you have to– perfume should be your best companion that day in a way. Because you have to be reliable, you have to be– you have to have something reliable next to you and perfume is next to you. It’s like a very close, close friend, intimate friend. So I believe that you should stick to what suits you the best. Not to try to find something too different. Something also that people maybe know you about. May know with her.
S: How should we wear perfume, differing from spring and summer, to fall and winter?
F: You have to prepare your skin. Today when we use product we have many scents around. The scent of laundry, and laundry is generally very heavily scented, and sometimes when you wear your t-shirt with that and don’t have any product, your skin almost smells like it’s very clean and washed out. You have a scented shower gel and there’s a shampoo, and then your body scrub, so you have to be very careful in a way of what you use. The best whatever you use, you have to prepare your skin, and preparing your skin means you have to use lotion, because perfume lasts more on the oily skin than the dry skin, because on the oily skin there is a chemical reaction– not a reaction, but a scent competition, I would say, within the perfume and the lotion that you put on. Because the lotion basically capture the smell. If you ever try that; you put a glass of milk in the fridge, the milk captures the smell of the fridge, because it’s fat. Fat is very odor friendly. Fat captures scent. So, if your skin has a lotion on it, the lotion would keep the scent. So, that’s something very important.
In summer, I like to spray perfume inside of my clothing, because as you sweat - if you sweat in the summer - your skin, the sweat disintegrates the perfume. The bacteria, the natural bacteria, your skin naturally basically produce some bacterias, which is not to be scared about - it’s normal. So your perfume tends to die faster during summer. So it’s better to spread it inside or the outside of your clothing, from far away, but not too close obviously because otherwise you get spots - a common sense thing. Winter, you can put it on skin because you have less problems.
We are going to come out soon with a hair product - a hair spray like a perfume for the hair and all that. That could be an option. Layering yourself from the same fragrance body cream or shower gel is a good thing also to do. Because you don’t disturb your perfume if you are in the same category of scent.
Pulse points can be always good, because this is where the heat is– also it’s a traditionally pulse point, during the 19th Century, where you had no clothing (neck, inside of the elbows and wrists). So the reason why we tell women to put perfume here is totally because traditionally that was the only place where the skin was the most showing. But, then you can put the perfume wherever you want, people have to be free about it.
S: I know that your travels are inspiration to you, is there anything, any scents that come to mind when you think of the West Coast, USA?
F: West Coast is very open air. You know what I mean. When I see how the fragrances we’re selling in the West Coast area - orange flower, orange blossom - there’s something maybe deeper than East Coast. East Coast is a bit more uptight or cleaner in a way like West European. West Coast is a bit more wild I think. There is more fantasy on the West Coast. It’s also in a way trendier. Many things come from California and from the West Coast. It’s more avant garde, or risk taker, I believe, more fantasy also. The way women are dressed and everything. It’s more fun.
S: How do you feel about the unisex trend now, the duality of perfume?
F: It’s something in fashion, but it’s not something in perfume, because the first unisex perfume that we have is called Eau De Cologne, and Eau De Cologne was created in the 16th and 17th centuries [chuckles]. So probably most– items for fashion is a big drama. I’ve been giving interviews for the past three months about unisex trends. In perfume, it’s been a fact for so many for many years, and even for centuries. It’s a reality, already, in some countries. If you go to Middle East, a man can wear a woman’s perfume. And this is something very special, because in the Middle East you have a line between men and women. They don’t care about putting on a perfume for a man or woman. It’s not a problem for them. The idea of men and women is something very western - westernized. It comes from throughout the 19th century - from Queen Victoria and in France, as well. Before that period, men were wearing wigs, they had make up, they were wearing heels on the shoes. So basically in terms of accessories, they were sharing the same things, and from the 19th century, the bourgeoisie decided to set up rules: men should wear pants and jacket, and women could wear the other things. And even for a woman to wear pants, if you go back to the 70s when Yves Saint Laurent created the first trousers for woman, it was very controversial in Europe and even in the States, that women could wear pant to go to the restaurant. For us in 2016, it sounds super bizarre. But a woman in the 60s could not wear trousers - pants. What the world is that, you know? So it’s kind of bizarre in a way, but unisex in fragrance has been a reality for centuries. So it’s not even a trend.
S: How was that experience of recreating Queen Marie Antoinette’s perfume?
F: It was an amazing experience. I learned a lot, because we had that opportunity in the archives to find the real formulas and everything was there. You just had to make it happen. It’s the same way you would find an old recipe from your grandmother and you will try to find ingredients and to find a way it was done at the time. We know many stories about it but for once we were capable to experience it. It was super interesting and I learned a lot because the ingredients were the same. There are no really new ingredients since over the past few hundred years. She was using jasmine and ivories and orange flowers, I can use today’s ivories and orange flowers. The only thing is, I’m not talking to Marie Antoinette, I’m talking to a woman who lives in 21st century. So, for today’s woman, it has to be different. You evolve. To go back and to tie it up with your first question, which I love about my being in the beginning of the 21st century, I still have to use my old craft. Very old craft. It goes back almost to Egyptians, four or five thousand years ago. With that same technique, I have to please people from today’s world.
Creating her scent was moving because we also had a huge exhibit in Versailles, so we spread the scent within the castle. You when you are in a new place, you try to put a perfume in it to make it lively and homey? It was kind of like that. All of the sudden, Versailles had a scent. A scent that was human.
