My style is about having no style. Other fragrance houses tailor their creations, even the customized scents, to fit their brand’s identity. I don’t have those limitations.
— Perfumer Francis Kurkdjian, quoted in Perfumer Francis Kurkdjian Goes Bespoke at Paris By Appointment Only. Kurkdjian's new shop in Paris opens next week at 5 rue d’Alger.
What a lovely escape into a beautiful other world on a rainy Thursday morning. We all can dream. 😉
Escape in your dreams right into his shop, R, and tell me what he’s selling (that I can’t have)!
He’s going to have a style whether he wants to or not; maybe it’ll take a while longer to see a trend, but creations cannot come out of the same person and be completely random, y’know?
True, but I think what he’s trying to say is that he’s not bound by having to preserve a brand’s heritage — he can do what he likes.
Adding…in his custom work, which is what he’s referring to.
Oh, I see. Well, that is pretty liberating, but Guerlain for example seems to have broken free their mold pretty successfully (I gues that depends on who you talk to). But of course it’s easier with a tabula rasa. I’m not too familiar with niche, but if I had to pick one that I saw no common threads within, I’d say L’Artisan.
I don’t know anything about Guerlain’s custom business or how “Guerlain-ish” the finished products are, but would certainly agree that in modern times, the mainstream output is not particularly “Guerlain-ish”!
He’s such an interesting man. If I had the funds, it would be fun to visit the shop. There’s something about bespoke fragrance… In a way, it is really intriguing and seductive. I’d likely do it if I had an opportunity just to check off one more perfumista experience. And I’d *love* an orange blossom fragrance made just for me. One that smelled eerily like L’Artisan’s F d’O from ’05 would be nice. 😉
I admire his notion of non-conformity, but non-conformity is conformity, too. 😉 And the mental fingerprints artists leave all over their work is what draws me to a specific individual in the first place.
LOL…I was going to say, the L’Artisan would do me just fine!
But will be interesting to see what he does w/ his own line. Hopefully we’ll get some “ready to wear” fragrances as well.
I love the idea of a custom perfume but I don’t think I could “settle down” with just one perfume. And for that price (8000+ Euros? Ouch!), for which I’d probably have to hock a kidney, I’d need to. Oh well. One can dream.
The shop is going to have ready-made stuff though…read about it this morning.