Maison Francis Kurkdjian | Contemporary perfumer

Francis Kurkdjian is a French contemporary perfumer and businessman. and winner of the Prix François Coty in 2001 for his lifetime achievements. He was made famous at age 26 for designing the scent of Le Male for Jean Paul Gaultier, one of the world best selling perfumes. This was followed by an additional forty creations for major perfume companies worldwide. Some of these creations include the Elie Saab Le Parfum (Elie Saab), My Burberry (Burberry), L'extase (Nina Ricci) and Narciso Rodriguez for her (Narciso Rodriguez). In 2009, he co-founded luxury fragrance house Maison Francis Kurkdjian with French-Lebanese businessman and ex Ernst & Young partner Marc Chaya, now a major global player in the luxury niche fragrance segment

Francis Kurkdjian was born in Paris, France on 14 May 1969 to Armenian parents. The Kurkdjian family had at once fled the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian Genocide and had settled in France after being deported and relocated to Aleppo. Having been exposed to music and dancing at a young age, Francis Kurkdjian wanted to be a ballet dancer during his youth. However, he failed passing the competition to study at the Paris Opera School of Dance in 1983. Kurkdjian, who already had an interest in perfume making since he was thirteen years old, decided in 1985 to become a perfumer. In 1990, Kurkdjian entered the Institut Supérieur International du Parfum, de la Cosmétique et de l'Aromatique Alimentaire (ISIPCA), a perfume school located in Versailles, France. He graduated from ISIPCA in 1993 and joined Quest International in Paris the same year. Kurkdjian continued his studies and obtained a master's degree from the Paris Institute of Luxury Marketing.

Philosophy

The Maison Francis Kurkdjian collection is sketched like a fragrance wardrobe, with myriad of facets of emotions. Designed in the tradition of luxury French perfumery, it advocates nevertheless a contemporary vision of the art of creating and wearing perfume.

Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s unique personality is fostered by the creative power of a man who has a taste for precision. Recognized as one of the world's most celebrated perfumers, Francis Kurkdjian imagined a fragrance territory of a free, sensual and delicate perfectionism.

The Maison is guided by enchanting yet precise codes: purity, sophistication, timelessness and the boldness of a classicism reinvented. Exceptional know-how come together and echo off each other. They are continually writing a number of sensory adventures, in which perfume is, naturally, the hero.