2023-09-22 13:28:35
This fall, you will not escape the creations of the gifted founder of the House Francis Kurkdjian, also creative director of Dior Parfums for 18 months: he reinterprets J’adore, while presenting the new eau de parfum from his eponymous House , Aqua Media. He reveals his “olfactory wardrobe” to us…
You have just launched Aqua Media, an eau de parfum with assertive freshness, with its aldehyde notes. How does this perfume fit into your desire to offer an “olfactory wardrobe”.
Francis Kurkdjian: The House is associated with very balanced perfumes, with this idea from the start of offering a wide olfactory range, ranging from fresh to the most sensual perfume… This new creation is placed in the first category, Aqua Media being an airy fragrance , with its notes of fennel, verbena, but also Italian bergamot…
You describe yourself as an “urban perfumer”, but we imagine more Mediterranean inspirations behind this series of Aqua perfumes (Media being the fourth that you have created).
Certainly, I admit! It’s largely about my view of the Mediterranean, whose landscapes I really like… But it’s from the city that the trends come. I never feel more inspired than when I discover a new metropolis… Being in the beating heart of cities is where you can dissect the beginnings of a trend. The biggest megacities are interesting because they are concentrates of fragrances, ideas, everything!
We imagine you recharging your batteries on an island in the Mediterranean…
It’s not false. The new candle from the “Les maison de la Maison” collection, Es Cap, with its bucolic inspirations, pays homage to Formentera, with its fig trees, its dry and red clay…
“A PERFUME LIKE A QUALITY AUTHOR’S FILM…”
You compare your creations to those of quality auteur cinema…
Sometimes, there are olfactory darings that move the lines – which are not necessarily mainstream products. I feel close to the film industry. A film is a production, with teams; the creation of a perfume, too. In the cinema, there are mainstream films, hyper-calibrated and marketed. Then there are arthouse films, with lighter crews, which can afford to take more risks. This is what we do.
How is the launch of Aqua Media going?
The launch of a perfume is a bit like launching a film. At the cinema, it is the first Wednesday screening which gives an indication of the box office. In perfumery, this takes place over the two or three months of launch: the first campaigns are broadcast, the product is in stores, people are wearing it…
And the points of sale must decide whether they will buy it back or not.
Absolutely. The commercial success of a perfume is measured by its ability to build loyalty within a community: basically, will the customer repurchase it? For Aqua Media, the first feedback is very encouraging…
Does being an independent House within LVMH allow you to have a more intuitive approach to marketing?
We created this Maison, Marc Chaya (co-founder and CEO of Maison Francis Kurkdjian, editor’s note) and I, with this idea of following my desires and my inspirations. This does not mean that we must be disconnected from the market or cut off from the times.
According to colleagues, the perfume market is booming. That’s right ? Exaggerated?
A bit of both. Let’s say that the range of perfumes we are part of has been on the rise in recent years.
What have been the highlights for your home over the past twelve months?
The opening of our very first points of sale in China, with a pop-up in Shanghai and another in Beijing. In the United States, we have consolidated our position as leader in perfume in all the points of sale where we are present, ahead of the major players in the sector, continuing our qualitative and ultra-selective distribution. In the US, you will find us at Bloomingdales, Sak’s, etc.
And in France ?
We will open a new store next year, in the fall, rue François 1er. This will be our third store in Paris since the one on rue des Blancs Manteaux at the end of 2014… Paris! When we open a point of sale, we consolidate it so that it becomes the benchmark in its category. Once we are, we allow ourselves to go elsewhere and build something else. This step-by-step construction is the key to our success.
How, exactly?
All our attention is focused on the perfume: the product, the quality of it, the quality of the service… Today, the customer expects impeccable service from a house like ours. Whether online or in store. Because in this ecosystem, our customers go from one to the other: from stores to digital…
You have continued this slow but sure expansion for a little over ten years…
Yes, our watchword has always been: above all, no rush! With Mark [Chaya], we are very vigilant and careful on these points: significant growth in turnover leads to internal reorganization at each important stage. We started with a very small team of three “Swiss army knives”. And today, there are around a hundred people at headquarters.
How does the perfume sector look in the coming months?
We cannot prejudge what geopolitics can suddenly do to us; so there are hazards which really do not depend on us and which have very complex consequences on economies and the luxury market. That being said, we are rather confident – knowing that there is a slight slowdown looming in China and a feverishness in the American market…
And the ingredients of the moment?
These days there is a pepper, Timut pepper, which smells a bit like grapefruit and lychee – I don’t think it will become very popular, because it has sulfur notes. I would say that the latest big novelties are pink pepper, which is now part of the palette and which appeared in the 1990s. We also had the wave of oud wood, a product widely used in the Middle East. Orient, the raw material coming from South East Asia.
In perfumery, the big demand is for “bold and sweet” perfumes. How does the House respond?
We try to answer it, in part, while taking the opposite view. I give the example of our Rouge 540 perfume, which is a collaboration with the house of Baccarat and which is an international success. It fits into this trend by being sweet, but without being sticky. For this project, I wanted a dense and luminous perfume. Rouge 540 therefore has the particularity of being as airy as it is gourmand; tenacious with sillage, but not cloying. This is what made it successful. It contains saffron, with a hint of bitterness, and very few components. It’s a bit of Bauhaus style, radical…
If we had to classify your House with a fashion label, which one suits you best? “Quiet luxury”?
For us, it would rather be “slow luxury”, which corresponds well to our distribution reasoning: we move forward “step by step”…
By Laurence Rémila
Photos François Roelants
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