Two of France’s most revered noses, Vincent Ricord and Bertrand Duchaufour, meet in a single bottle for Kuwait’s CZAR – a woody fougère that treats leadership not as noise, but as presence.
There is a particular kind of person who changes the temperature of a room without saying a word. No announcement, no performance, just a steadiness that everyone else begins, almost unconsciously, to orient around. It is notoriously hard to describe, and harder still to bottle. With LEAD, its new Extrait de Parfum, Kuwait’s CZAR Fragrances has set out to do exactly that.
The brief, as the house tells it, began with a single question: what does confidence smell like? To answer it, CZAR did not reach for a trend report. It looked to Paris, and to two perfumers whose names carry real weight in the rooms where fine fragrance is made.
A Meeting of Opposites
Vincent Ricord and Bertrand Duchaufour are not an obvious pairing, which is precisely the point.
Ricord was born into a family of perfumers in Grasse and first stepped into a perfumery laboratory at thirteen. He spent fifteen formative years at Expressions Parfumées before building a body of more than seventy fragrances for houses including Clive Christian, Lalique, Sisley, Ex Nihilo, Ormaie and Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777. He has also taught at the École Supérieure du Parfum in Paris. His signature is light and precision: clean architecture, nothing wasted.
Duchaufour arrives from the opposite pole. Born in Nancy, he trained in Grasse from 1985 alongside Dominique Ropion and Michel Almairac. He signed his first creation, Amber & Lavender for Jo Malone, in 1995, and has since composed well over a hundred fragrances for Dior, Givenchy, Acqua di Parma, Comme des Garçons, Penhaligon’s and Amouage. As house perfumer at L’Artisan Parfumeur he helped define modern niche perfumery with Timbuktu and Dzongkha. His Avignon remains the reference for incense, and Penhaligon’s Sartorial is still cited among the great fougères of its generation. In 2025 he opened his own house, L’Entropiste.
Light and shadow, then. Precision and depth. LEAD is what happens when the two agree on a direction.
“Leadership is not loud. It is calm, certain, and felt the moment you enter a room.”
— CZAR Fragrances, on LEAD
The Architecture of Presence
On skin, LEAD reads as a modern woody fougère with a spiced edge. It opens bright and decisive with bergamot, mandarin and cardamom, lifted by a green flicker of geranium and the crispness of apple. It is the olfactory equivalent of a first, unhesitating step.
The heart is where the collaboration shows its hand. Lavender and iris, the classical spine of any great fougère, are set against cedarwood and a thread of frankincense smoke that could only be Duchaufour’s. Jasmine softens the edges without diluting the intent.
The base is built to endure: sandalwood, cistus labdanum, patchouli, vetiver and the warm hush of tonka bean, a resinous foundation that stays long after its wearer has left the room.
CZAR maps six marks of a leader onto the composition: vision, presence, courage, integrity, balance and legacy. But its own summary is the sharpest. This is a scent that does not follow trends. It sets them.
From Milan to Paris
LEAD also opens a new chapter for the CZAR Designer Collections. Its predecessor, LINK, was composed in Milan by Luca Maffei, who, in a neat closing of the circle, trained under Ricord.
Now the collection moves to Paris by way of TechnicoFlor, the independent French fragrance house that is home to both perfumers. Founded in 1981 by François-Patrick Sabater and still family-owned, TechnicoFlor creates for brands in more than seventy countries from creative centres in France and Dubai. The Dubai centre is devoted to the tastes of the Gulf and the wider Middle East, and the house’s FlorIndex eco-rating tool underpins a commitment to natural raw materials and responsible creation.
A Kuwaiti House with Global Intent
Founded in 2018, CZAR has long argued that Gulf niche perfumery can stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s leading houses, and it has the network to prove it. The house works with some fifteen international manufacturers, more than a dozen independent laboratories and over fourteen distinguished perfumers, a roster no other Kuwaiti brand can match.
LEAD is the flagship of a wider release that also introduces CHECKMATE, MEMORY and CHALLENGE, bringing Jean-Christophe Hérault, Jorge Lee and Chris Maurice into the fold. Deputy CEO Ahmad Salah Al-Heid frames the mission plainly: his team turns bold creative ideas into products that “redraw the competitive landscape among specialist houses,” while deepening the international partnerships behind development and testing. The ambition is no longer simply to launch fragrances, but to help decide where the region’s taste goes next.
“For those who don’t wait to be followed.”
Wearing It
In the end, LEAD is less a statement than a posture. It is not built to announce its wearer from across the street, but to be noticed at the moment that matters: a handshake, a doorway, the beat before someone speaks. Clear in vision, calm in presence, unforgettable in legacy. Fittingly, it is a fragrance that leads by example.
The Anatomy of LEAD
Top notes: Bergamot, Mandarin, Cardamom, Geranium, Apple
Heart notes: Lavender, Cedarwood, Iris, Frankincense, Jasmine
Base notes: Sandalwood, Labdanum, Patchouli, Vetiver, Tonka Bean
LEAD at a Glance
- Format: Extrait de Parfum, 110 ml
- Perfumers: Vincent Ricord × Bertrand Duchaufour, with TechnicoFlor
- Family: Woody fougère, spicy
- Discover it: CZAR at Kuwait International Fair, 20–31 October
- Available at: CZAR boutiques across Kuwait, czar.com.kw and the CZAR app (iOS & Android), with worldwide delivery
- Follow: @czar.kw
Vincent Ricord: @vincentricordperfumer
