What If You Could Smell Like Your Most Killer Fit? 

Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s latest Oud Velvet Mood scent is fragrance for fashionable guys who value fashionable fabrics. Here’s why.

You know that feeling of throwing on your best outfit, the one that’s made up with fancy fabrics and makes you excited to walk into the room? That’s what Maison Francis Kurkdijan has bottled up with its latest Oud Velvet Mood scent.  

If you were to ascribe a fragrance to that feeling, oud would undoubtedly be part of the concoction, hailed among perfumers for its warm, deep woody aroma. At Maison Francis Kurkdjian, these affluent accords are treated with the meticulous approach of a couturier. And with its latest creation, the note is used to build a scent trail inspired by the sand in the desert. 

“Last year, I visited Liwa’s dunes and spent some time out in the middle of some of the Persian Gulf’s most sensational, spectacular landscapes. I was struck by those infinite horizons, where the gaze is swallowed into nothingness,” Francis Kurkdjian shared in a statement. “The raw, bewitching beauty of the desert, the tactile sensuality of sand, the organic, shifting, almost carnal dunes sculpted by light and wind… It was this dream world – a combination of vastness and intimacy – that I wanted to distill into Oud Velvet Mood, into a moment when fragrance becomes a caress.”

At the core of Velvet Mood, oud wood is tempered with a textured peach note, combined with leather and apricot facets of osmanthus, paired to match the warmth and sensuality of velvet caressing the body. If you were to liken that to a garment, it would probably look like a velvet jacket, cut slim and single-breasted, clinging to a model on a Gucci runway in the early 2000s during the brand's haute-sex days. Now, who doesn’t want to smell like that? 

And this isn’t the first time Maison Francis Kurkdijan has intertwined the feelings of wearing really, really good fabrics with scent. Its predecessors include Satin Mood, which mixes Bulgarian rose with vanilla, oud, benzoin, caramel and cedar, mirroring the fluidity and lightness of satin. And Silk Mood combines florals and rose, crafted to simulate the touch of a petal on the skin.

Velvet Mood is primed for finishing off your steamiest fits, the ones where the fancy fabrics like velvet are in abundance, destined for first class outings. It’s also great if you want to bottle that feeling and spice up the day-to-day. The choice is yours, my friend.  

Maison Francis Kurkdjian Oud Velvet Mood Extrait de Parfum (70ml) is available to purchase at Harrods now.