Perfumer Francis Kurkdjian, who as previously reported plans to launch his own perfume house later this year, was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture last week.
The award honors Kurkdjian as one of France's “greatest perfumers”. You can read the speech given by Christine Albanel, France's Minister of Culture, here. (via Women's Wear Daily)
See also: Serge Lutens named Commander in French Order of Arts and Letters
13 Comments
Read more about commenting at Now Smell This.
Remember the old Soviet Union- the iron curtain.? Just a few years ago that was the fragrance industry. Now there is a chinese wall, (thanks to blogs like NST critics like Luc Turin and Chandler Burr,and orgs like Sniffaplooza; that wall has gone from opaque to transparant. now some of the great perfumers are brands in themselves. I predict Kurkdijan is just the first of a trend for perfumers forging their own brands. QUESTION: WHO WOULD WE LIKE TO SEE NEXT?
Hmm, that is very interesting, I think you are right.
There are many reasons not to launch an own business: It is stressfull, you will have a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with perfume, the money you have to invest or to get from investors, which will tell you then how to do. No thanks.
On the other hand, FK is young, SL was young when he started… It is easier nowadays to find investors, you do not need big companies to etsablish niche products, it works well on the internet as a global word of mouth.
I wish Ellena would bring his own line out, with clear, compromissless scents.
But you will not be a slave to flankers, price point and poor quality.SL is not a perfunerr to me , more like a creative director. I would like to see Sheldrake, Roudnitska, Becker, Grosjman, Laudemiel…
of course Ellena- but i think that hermes suits his uncompromising aesthetic.. Like Galliano for Dior in fashion
there ais money out there, trust me,especially when you have a few hundred thousand loyal fragrant fans…
Mark Buxton beat him to it. And he can't have been the first, even from one of the big F&F companies, can he? Will have to think.
Technically it's something along the lines of a collaboration, I think, but isn't Parfums Delrae Michel Roudnitska's place to do this own (beautiful) thing?
no, thats why your comment confused me,. roudnitska is not exclusive to Delrae and her next fragrance will not be coming from MR. I am not talking about a collaboration. that would be again the s frederic malle , biehl, mo.
Well, Ellena did start The Different Company, and I do think of the fragrances he did with TDC as exclusively “his” (i.e. not beholden to a creavtive director looking over his shoulder). I'm sure that entering into the in-house perfumer relationship with Hermes was not undertaken lightly, but I do think it was a good match.
Thank you, don't know why TDC slipped my mind.
Robin, no, Delrae Roth had very specific fragrances in mind even before she hired MR to make them…
I am all for transparency and credit where credit is due (hooray!), but I do think there are real advantages to a Malle or Les Nez style set up, rather than the perfumer having to be in charge of the business completely, and not just because it's a pain to have to be a creative and an exec at the same time. Over on Perfume Posse we were discussing the role of creative direction and its importance in relation to Buxton's releases. While some perfumers can no doubt be their own editors, but it sounds kind of lonely to me. I think it's often useful to have a partnership that challenges the artist and allows her or him to play and push boundaries, but with someone to help guide and edit that process.
A, I think all of that is true, and besides, from everything I hear there is a fair amount of creative direction going on at FM anyway. Just not the kind of “make it sell” direction that's going on elsewhere, perhaps. Will be interesting to see what Kurkdjian comes up with on his own, though.
Oh yes, that's what I've heard re: Malle (and Les Nez, and S-Perfume, to cite another example) as well. I wish Kurkdjian all the best, just think it will be interesting to see how it all develops. People really seem to be deciding which bits of the old model they want to keep and which they want to throw away.
You know, they're all wise to experiment now. The whole system by which fragrances are made is so incredibly archaic.