Francis Kurkdjian twirls mouillettes de parfum between his fingers in perfect synchrony. The blotter strips scented with vanilla make for a mesmerizing Ferris wheel as the perfume creation director at Dior gives a tutorial about the ever-popular fragrance note. “Vanilla has captivated people for centuries. It is as old as the discovery of alcohol. I feel it is easy to understand. You like it or you hate it,” the perfumer says.

In the world of perfumes, Francis Kurkdjian is as famous as the scent in the bottles he fills. He has created blockbusters for the world’s best brands, from Elie Saab and Jean Paul Gaultier to Narciso Rodriguez, before co-founding his own line, Maison Francis Kurkdjian, which LVMH acquired in 2017. Then, in 2021, he became the lead for Parfums Christian Dior. On an autumn day in Paris, the day after Maria Grazia Chiuri’s spring/summer 2025 collection fashion show, Kurkdjian, clad head to toe in the brand he represents, is in the mood to talk his latest fragrance and superstitions.

Kurkdjian has an ability to capture a narrative in each of his fragrances. He creates a storyboard, which he uses as an outline for what goes into the bottle.

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“Inspiration is a way to define your playground. This is how I see it,” he says. “You have to seek. Inspiration is the result of the questions you ask to yourself or to someone else.”

His new eau de parfum Bois Talisman for Dior’s La Collection Privée, the top drawer of the brand’s scent offerings—a portfolio of fragrances that reflect the legacy of the founding couturier—is the result of Kurkdjian’s most recent inspiration.

The storytelling of Bois Talisman, much like the name suggests, is grounded in Monsieur Christian Dior and “his addiction to superstition and lucky charms,” Kurkdjian says, revealing that “he had a psychic reader he was consulting, sometimes twice or three times a day. He was super superstitious.” Kurkdjian is serious and rigorous, his speech considered and direct. Even so, he too has been guided by superstition. “For my important meetings, I put a sugar cube in my pocket,” he states. “I have had this habit since I was 25 years old, and the last time I put a sugar cube in my pocket was when I met Monsieur Arnault [of the LVMH empire] for my interview for Christian Dior.”

As for the symbolism of the sugar cube? “A way to get lucky,” he says, recounting how a former colleague put him onto this: “You should put a sugar cube in your pocket and cut a piece of your hair,” she told him. Over time, “I lost the habit because what happens if you don’t have the sugar cube? What happens if you lose the sugar cube? What happens if the sugar cube melts? Then you start to hyperventilate. You get paralyzed. I’m a rather rational guy, and I try to stick to science, but at Dior, I think it’s quite interesting to reactivate that state of mind.”

Kurkdjian knows the history of Christian Dior by heart, and it forms part of his inspiration. In the development of Bois Talisman (“The code name of the perfume was Bois Vanille,” he discloses, “because in the lab we keep the name secret up to the end”), the question the perfumer posed to his fragrance laboratory team of eight: How can the perfume department play with superstition?

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“I like to post-rationalize things,” Kurkdjian says. “That is kind of fun, in a way, to find links. With the team, we were looking for a story.”

 

The result is a unisex fragrance that is an homage to the shared appreciation of irrational rituals and sacred objects by Kurkdjian and Dior. Monsieur Dior was known to carry a golden star, a four-leaf clover, and lily of the valley, and touch a small piece of wood several times each day. For Kurkdjian, it’s sugar. Woody and sweet, Bois Talisman draws on these superstitions. The olfactory composition is cedar and vanilla. “It’s simple,” Kurkdjian states. “When you smell it, it has layers, but it’s not too complicated.”

Kurkdjian makes clear that his work goes far beyond the blending of fragrances. Dior gives him the freedom needed to produce his best work, and he is aware of the responsibility on his shoulders. “The responsibility is so big, that if you think about it, you basically pass away,” he says. Dior is “a big voice within the luxury world, so you have to make sure you are able to embody the thing.” Kurkdjian sees his work not as a job but as his life’s purpose: “You have to dedicate your life to what you do,” he says. He oversees the life cycle for each product, from inception to final delivery, including managing Dior’s relationship with its flower growers (an ever-evolving task with the effects of climate change) in Grasse, the raw-materials capital of the French fragrance industry. “At every part of the development process, we smell, and if something goes wrong, it is my responsibility.”

Kurkdjian had his first megahit perfume at 25—Le Male for Jean Paul Gaultier—and in the 30 years since, he has continued to hit the right notes. Much like the fragrances he creates, Kurkdjian considers himself straightforward and simple, but with multiple layers. Honesty is his measuring stick. “I’m not afraid to be hurt when someone tells me the truth, because I think there is nothing better than the truth,” he says. “Even if you are not happy with it, that’s the truth.” With his perfumes, “you smell what you get, you get what you smell. Perfume has its own truth.”

Another truth? Bois Talisman, from that first spritz, will enthrall you and become your fragrance talisman.

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