Maison Francis Kurkdjian Bought by LVMH

LVMH knows good perfume. In addition to its industry-leading scents from LVMH brands Dior, Guerlain, Givenchy and Aqua di Parma, Louis Vuitton launched its very first line of scents last year, created by in-house perfumer Jacques-Cavallier Bertrand at the company’s exquisitely-restored chateau in Grasse. On Monday, the company announced that it has purchased Maison Francis Kurkdjian, the label created by the perfumer Kurkdjian and his business partner Marc Chaya, in 2009.

Francis Kurkdjian is exactly how you would imagine a French perfumer to be: dark, handsome, a little intense. But for all his brooding intensity, he still knows how to create a blockbuster: he’s the “nose: behind Narciso Rodriguez For Her, Elie Saab Le Parfum, My Burberry and also Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male (the one in the bottle that looks like a sailor and which is consistently in the top 10 bestselling men’s scents worldwide).

Kurkdjian’s own label is his opportunity to let his imagination run wild. If Frederic Malle was the person responsible for pioneering the new “niche” world of perfumery, then Kurkdjian was the one who brought the unbridled creativity. As well as the usual body and shower products, his bestselling Aqua Universalis scent – an attempt to create the ultimate feeling of freshness in perfume – also comes in clothes detergent and fabric softener. But perhaps best-loved are his Scented Bubbles, which come in scents like Rose, Cut Grass and Fresh Mint, and which you can pop with your nose to release the scents.

But the thing about perfumers, generally, is they are kept out of the limelight. I remember interviewing Kurkdjian once and him laughing that on the way to our meeting, he had been walking along Regent Street carrying a Maison Francis Kurkdjian carrier bag from his newly-opened Paris boutique. A woman had stopped him on the pavement. “Oh my god!” she had said, “have you been there?! I’m dying to go! I love those perfumes!” – all the while having no idea that she was in fact talking to the maestro himself. Will all that change at LVMH? Who knows. But for all scent lovers, the idea of scaling up this gem of a brand, and providing the wherewithal for new, chic and interesting perfume possibilities is an exciting one indeed.