Christian Dior, Dioressence, 15 ml. or 0.5 oz. Flacon, Parfum Extrait, 1979, 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." The Perfume Society.

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.’

And Miss Dior became one of the great fragrance icons of the 20th Century. Allegedly, as Dior was preparing for the launch of his first perfume, the name for the fragrance had yet to be invented. Then his sister, Catherine Dior, walked into the salon of 30 Avenue Montaigne. Dior’s muse, Mitzah Bricard, announced ‘Here’s Miss Dior!’ On the day of the show, the salon was sprayed with this bewitching perfume, and clients and journalists left with its scent on their clothes and their skin. Eau Fraîche also appeared during the Dior years .. a summery splash by perfumer Edmond Roudnitska, uplifting with mandarin and lemon, with oak moss and vanilla in its base.

Scent had always been incredibly important to Dior. Eternally superstitious, he slipped a sprig of lily of the valley into them hem of every haute couture dress, and always kept it with him. He had his own hot-houses, expressly for the purpose of growing this favourite flower. So it was natural that in 1956, he should launch a fragrance, another Roudnitska creation, based on this favourite flower. Sadly, Dior died just a year after the stunning lily of the valley-based Diorissimo was first unveiled. But happily for perfume-lovers, the creative spark ignited by Christian Dior became a flame that burns brightly to this day.

Parfums Christian Dior is one of the few perfume houses with its own in-house ‘nose’, François Demachy, whose role is Head of Olfactory Development. Demachy was raised in the heartland of perfumery, in Grasse, where ‘we learned about natural ingredients. I took an apprenticeship in a plant there where I passed my time learning different talents. We actually had a contract for the manufacturing of natural ingredients; we had a different rapport with them. It was very helpful afterwards because I approached things differently in my creations, and this was specific to growing up in Grasse.’

Dioressence was launched in 1979. It is a Chypre fragrance for women. The nose behind this fragrance is Guy Robert. A very feminine oriental fragrance with a mysterious sensuality captured in notes of geranium, cinnamon and patchouli. Voluptuous and captivating. Esprit de Parfum has a concentration between 15% and 30%. It is a rare concentration on the market but it is famous because it is a concentration that Dior made.

Top notes are aldehydes, Orange, Fruity Notes, Patchouli, Green Notes, and Bergamot
Heart notes are Carnation, Tuberose, Cinnamon, Violet, Orris Root, Jasmine, Ylang Ylang, Rose, and Geranium
Base notes are Patchouli, Benzoin, Vanilla, Oakmoss, Vetiver, and Styrax

Offered here is a large and lovely rare 15 ml. bottle of this absolutely gorgeous fragrance in the Parfum Extrait format. Almost impossible to find in perfume form nowadays, this is highly collectible for vintage Dior lovers. It is superb! Comes on its inner presentation box .. never used and still smelling just as it should ..