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Once upon a time Miss Dior

2022-02-10T16:48:04.916Z


The iconic perfume, imagined by Christian Dior in 1947 and named Miss Dior in homage to his sister and muse Catherine, has evolved over time into an absolute celebration of femininity, nature and beauty to embody today a promise of light, optimism and joy. ...


February 12, 1947

It all started on a freezing winter morning in Paris, minus twelve degrees outside, in a context of Parisian strikes.

However, this date will forever seal the fate of Christian Dior and his first perfume Miss Dior.

Contrary to the ambient gloom of the post-war period, the couturier, still unknown to the general public, made his first fashion show and proclaimed in his own way his desire for renewal.

“There are not enough colors!

Get out more scarves!

Spray more perfume!

he exclaims during the final preparations for the salons at 30, avenue Montaigne, which are overflowing with flowers.

Her spring-summer collection entitled "Corolle" is an aesthetic shock with large quantities of fabrics that draw a woman-flower, with rounded shoulders on a tight waist and flared skirt.

Among the guests, Carmel Snow, editor-in-chief of the Harper'

s Bazaar americain, struck by this new silhouette, qualifies the collection as a “new look”.

The shock is also olfactory, with the staircase leading to Miss Dior's fragrant salons, when each passage of the perfumed models diffuses a little more its green floral melody.

Seventy-five years later, Miss Dior's twirling petals resonate in their own way with the couturier's desires: to believe in the future, and to savor the happiness of being a woman with that hint of Parisian impertinence.

The new Miss Dior Eau de Parfum takes up the same values ​​through the freshness of a moist lily of the valley and, still, its heart of Grasse rose, which is fleshed out with peony and powdery iris.

The trail remains extremely sensual, with musks, balms, vanilla and sandalwood that fuse with the skin.

Reinvented, the florality of Miss Dior exults, luminous, fresh and with an elegant trail.

Miss Dior, a statement

Miss Dior was born out of an imperious desire to re-enchant women's lives, to make them see again the shimmering colors of love.

Christian Dior had thought of this perfume upstream from 1946, at the same time as he was designing his clothes.

He wanted a haute couture trail in keeping with his collection, feminine, optimistic and different from the slightly bombastic vanilla fragrances of the pre-war period.

Through Miss Dior, he aspired to offer a profusion of flowers, especially those grown in Grasse, whatever the price.

Its tension between the freshness of flight and a mysterious background was an immediate success with young women in search of a new elixir of seduction.

“I created this perfume to surround each woman with an exquisite femininity, as if each of my dresses, one by one, emerged from a bottle.

»

women's love

Christian Dior never ceased to surround himself with the company of women.

All kinds of women, aristocrats, celebrities, fashion editors, models but also his housekeeper, so benevolent after the death of his mother, and especially his younger sister Catherine, always an accomplice.

She was his heroine, his muse, his life force.

A great personality, Catherine Dior joined the Resistance at the age of 25 before being arrested and then deported in 1944. When she returned to France in 1945, she healed her ills by becoming a flower broker from the South in Paris.

It was only natural that her brother paid homage to her by dedicating his first perfume to her, after having heard her friend, the avant-garde Mitzah Bricard, exclaim on seeing her: “Here, here is Miss Dior!

Catherine embodies this ideal of an elegant and sophisticated young girl – she received the same bourgeois education as her brother –, while being free when it comes to choosing her destiny.

If her courage earned her the highest distinctions, Catherine Dior cultivated great discretion in her acts of resistance.

In 1945, she bought the Nayssés agricultural estate devoted to perfumed flowers in Callian in the Var, not far from Montauroux where her brother would settle a few years later.

She then put her energy at the service of five hectares, taking care of the vines and rosebushes herself.

For her part, Miss Dior will cling to the necks of the most beautiful women in the world such as Sophia Loren, Joséphine Baker, Marlène Dietrich, Brigitte Bardot and Kim Novak: definitely a story of women.

Flowers, flowers, flowers

It's hard to talk about the style of Dior perfumes without mentioning the flowers.

Between them and the creator, it's a real love story.

From the very beginning of 30 avenue Montaigne, the boutique was lavishly decorated with flowers by the designer, nostalgic for his childhood garden in Granville.

So, for Miss Dior, he wants the most beautiful bouquet containing rose and jasmine from Grasse, but also touches of peony and lily of the valley.

In his Provencal property of the Domaine de la Colle Noire in Montauroux, acquired in 1950, three years after the success of Miss Dior, the couturier perfumer is keen to perpetuate the age-old art of growing perfumed flowers, jasmine grandiflorum and Grasse rose. as well as lavender.

He finds in the flowers a sort of vital impetus, a springtime happiness, of that which comes back after the bad times.

“The Grasse centifolia rose offers a thousand different facets depending on the time of day, the humidity or the wind, both floral and lemony, fresh.

We have grown little by little, with a majority of women, who lead the projects and are very involved in the preservation of the environment”, continues the farmer.

Even today, each bottle of Miss Dior contains the soul of Provence, where Christian Dior recreated his own Eden.

The scent of happiness that seems eternal.

“Miss Dior was born of those evenings in Provence crossed by fireflies where green jasmine serves as a counter-melody to the melody of the night and the earth.

»

A couture look

The inventor of the New Look considered Miss Dior as the “finishing touch” to the look of his first fashion show in 1947, that dot on the i that marks a look.

A dialogue with fashion that has never ceased since, for the new Eau de Parfum, the Artistic Director of the women's collections (haute couture, ready-to-wear and accessories) of the House of Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri, imagined a so-called “Millefiori” dress, feminine and modern at the same time;

its fabric mimics a marvelous garden, where multicolored embroidered petals bloom on the finesse of a pleated silk.

This floral flight climbing from the skirt to the bustier is worn by Natalie Portman in the film Miss Dior: a virtuoso embroidery that required five hundred hours of work in the Couture Dior workshops for this unique piece.

Another symbol of this link between the two universes,

the refined bow that tops the Miss Dior bottle, a classic of Dior grammar.

Yesterday in black silk satin, this knot called "dagger" or "swallow's tail" is reinvented in extraordinary luxury for the Eau de Parfum of 2021. Its exceptional fabric was made by the French ribbon-maker Faure.

Woven on traditional wooden looms, this jacquard throws a myriad of random pastel flowers onto each knot.

A few centimeters of absolute luxury tied on Miss Dior's collar...

this jacquard projects a myriad of random pastel flowers onto each knot.

A few centimeters of absolute luxury tied on Miss Dior's collar...

this jacquard projects a myriad of random pastel flowers onto each knot.

A few centimeters of absolute luxury tied on Miss Dior's collar...

love of beauty

For his first perfume, Christian Dior wanted a bottle that resembled him, bringing together his taste for classicism, luxury and the femininity inherent in Miss Dior.

A crystal amphora designed by Fernand Guéry-Colas takes up the curve of the silhouette of his “Corolle” collection.

For the 1949 festivities, Dior Perfumes took the aesthetic slider a notch higher by ordering three even more luxurious versions from the master glassmakers at Baccarat, colored in blue, white and red using the overlay technique, then gilded with fine gold.

Exceptional pieces even if, the following year, Christian Dior was seduced by the modernist trend that stirred the arts.

In 1950, he signed a collection called “Verticale” and opted for a graphic rectangular bottle “cut like a suit”.

As couture is never far from perfume,

the glass is sculpted with a houndstooth pattern in matte and shiny relief.

A leaning glance at this fabric that the couturier used for many of his creations.

It is with this geometric bottle that Miss Dior will be exported to the four corners of the world.

With a few creative sidesteps, however, such as this dog-shaped bottle entitled "I belong to Miss Dior" in 1952. More recently, Miss Dior offered herself an exceptional "Millefiori" edition available in one hundred copies, with a bow embroidered with bright pink and blue flowers inspired by the embroidery of the Millefiori dress.

This 200 ml bottle of Eau de Parfum 2021 nestles in a miniature trunk with luxurious finishes made with Dior Couture trunk makers.

A concentrate of Dior know-how in the service of a colorful bouquet that exudes the joy of living.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-02-10

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