Christian Dior, Diorissimo, Lily of the Valley, Muguet, 220 ml. or 7.4oz. Flacon, Eau de Toilette, 1956, 1975, Paris, France ..

A woman’s perfume tells me more about her than her handwriting.’ So said Christian Dior, who was born in 1905, and who was one of the greatest-ever couturiers, but yet a man whose name is also synonymous, all over the world, with the art of perfume.

As design careers go, Christian Dior‘s didn’t start well. His parents, who lived in a grand villa on the Normandy coast, refused to let him attend a school of fine arts, telling him that it wouldn’t help him find a real job. He kept his parents quiet, initially, by enrolling for Paris’s Institute of Political Sciences, but little did his parents realise that this was also a door to Paris’s exotic night-life.

Dior drifted happily into the company of artists and writers who later went on to become among the greatest of their time, painter Christian Bérard, Jean Cocteau, poet Max Jacob and actor Marcel Herrand all became friends. And another arty friend asked Christian Dior, who really longed to be an artist himself, if he’d be interested in becoming a partner in his new gallery. With funding from Dior’s father, it went on to showcase works by Paul Klee, Otto Dix, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miro and Raoul Dufy, among many others, But sadly, the Wall Street crash of 1929 made for few buyers, and badly dented the Dior family fortunes, and this adventure ended when tuberculosis forced Christian Dior to leave Paris, in 1934.

On his return, post-recovery, an impoverished Dior looked for work. A friend suggested he take up fashion illustration; he dedicated himself to the task, studying the great designers such as Molyneux, Schiaparelli, and Lanvin, and his dress designs were sought out by couturier Robert Piguet. The paper Le Figaro gave Dior‘s vibrant sketches a weekly page, and his hat designs did well, too.

During the Second World War, Dior worked as a designer beneath couturier Lucien Lelong. On 12th February 1947, Christian Dior started his own business, and turned the austere post-wartime world on its head, creating the most headline-grabbing collection ever known. Overnight, Christian Dior‘s ‘New Look’, with its full, swirling skirts, wasp-waisted jackets and bold use of colour, became, as Vogue puts it, ‘catnip to a luxury-starved populace eager to return to the rituals of grooming and dressing up’.

But women didn’t just want to look good. They wanted to smell beautiful, too. Soon after the success of his ground-breaking New Look, Dior recalled, ‘Miss Dior was born. It was born of those Provençal evenings filled with fireflies when green jasmine serves as a counterpoint to the melody of the night and the earth.’

"The best attempt at a Lily of the Valley fragrance is Diorissimo, designed in 1956 by Edmond Roudnitska. Fashioned in homage to Christian Dior’s favorite flower, which adorned his personal stationary, his lapels, his fashion designs, and, on one occasion, inspired his entire 1954 spring collection, it remains one of the most realistic replications of the bloom’s distinctive scent. Often imitated but never matched, it’s still the best one to wear today. The fragrance that epitomizes all the extravagance, sophistication and dramatic flair of Dior.”

Top notes are Green Leaves and Bergamot
Heart notes are Lily of the Valley, Lilac, Jasmine, Lily, Ylang Ylang, Amaryllis, Rosemary, and Boronia
Base note is Sandalwood

Offered here is a pristine huge 7.4 oz. flacon of the precious sweet perfume in the Eau de Toilette form, absolutely pristine, never used, no box. Such a gorgeous classic!