In 1969 French couture designer Christian Dior commissioned perfumer Guy Robert to create a perfume to be worn with his furs. He had done a series of luxe fur coats, evening furs and day designs with fur trims for his Fall/Winter 1969 Collection and wanted a special scent to accent them. He considered this perfume to be a fragrant accessory to wear with his furs.
Dior requested a scent in his own words that would be “intensely animalic, sensual and brutal!” He wanted it to run counter to the luminous blends that had made Dior perfumes famous up to that point. They came up with Dioressence, a deliciously rich chypre, very powerful and tenacious, and quite different than anything the house of Dior had previously issued. It caused a sensation when it came out and has become famous as one of the greatest perfumes of all time. Women liked its balance of earthy depth and elegance. It combined the fleshy ripeness of animalic notes with the autumnal warmth of patchouli and moss. Wrapped in jasmine and rose it had a glamorous and exotic aura, but remained surprisingly pleasing and easy to wear. It became very popular.
The original formula of Dioressence issued in 1969 was available from Dior and in high end stores like Saks Fifth Avenue for 10 years.
Here is one of the early ads for Dioressence.
I also noticed that this vintage Dior ad seems to be inspired by the painting “Repose” by John White Alexander (1895). Just a bit of art trivia for you.
In 1979 the Dior company decided to update the original formula of Dioressence for a relaunch. This new fragrance was created by Max Gavarry, and it followed the same general outlines as the original Dioressence but it was made plusher and sweeter. The rich glitter of warm spices was enriched, and the dense pungency of ambergris in the ’69 version was substantially reduced. Most vintage Dioressence on the market today is from this 1979 relaunch.
In the original 1969 launch Dioressence By Dior was marketed as the height of luxury, the ultimate in sensuality and sophistication meant to enhance the experience of wearing a beautiful fur and being a beautiful woman. But times were changing ….. and there was no reason you could not wear Dioressence when not wearing a fur. And, hopefully, they would sell a lot more of this exotic scent if it could be worn anytime with anything.
Thus the Dior company issued this description of their 1979 version:
“Bring an aura of mystery and magic to your days and nights with Dioressence by Christian Dior. This women’s fragrance is undeniably feminine and enchanting, making it the perfect choice for evening use. It blends notes of bergamot and orange with fruity notes, patchouli and green notes for a distinctive result. Choose this breathtaking fragrance when you want to captivate a crowd without lifting a finger. Its memorable essence turns heads wherever you go.”
It is interesting to note that the original purpose of the 1969 version as a fragrance accessory to wear with furs was no longer used in the 1979 and later promotions and advertising campaigns! This is partly because wearing fur had now become a questionable practice due to the efforts of animal rights activists, thus Dior had to de-emphasize the original purpose of the scent and come up with a new ones in order to keep selling the perfume. It was fine to emphasize wearing this perfume any time you wanted to wear it because there was no reason it could only be worn with furs! They go on to say, “This spicy beauty with a green rose top note is delightful. It teases with its spicy warmth, before enveloping its wearer in a cool veil of moss and vetiver. ”
The 1979 version came in the above spray flacon and remained and remains to this day a lovely choice to wear with furs or anything else! In the 1980s I was very aware of the existence of this perfume but not the fact that it had originally been created to wear with furs!
I have been wearing this 1979 version for a week as my daily perfume while I have worked on this post. I absolutely love it! It makes me feel as if I am in my own magic world – a place removed from the stresses and pressures of modern life – mysterious and special. It smells lovely – not at all heavy, but very long lasting. On me it even lasts through showers and becomes deeper and more special over a couple of days. It makes me feel relaxed and peaceful similar to how I feel visiting a garden in a summer evening after the heat of the day has passed.
Fast forward to the current times – I am writing this post in August of 2024.
In the late 1980s the Dior company began experiencing financial difficulties. Incidentally, I worked for the company during that time and through the 1990s. I attended Dior’s perfume training school but the fact that Dioressence was originally designed in 1969 to wear with furs was never mentioned! The company seems to have forgotten this most interesting history. Again, in the late 80s many of the perfumes from Dior were reformulated using cheaper ingredients for economy or replacing banned ingredients because they were required to do so by law. Alas, due to decisions by the accountants at Dior, Dioressence was again reformulated. Thus we got the 3rd version that is available today on the commercial retail perfume market.
Dioressence has been through multiple reformulations:
- The first and the original Barbaric version was created in 1969 by Guy Robert
- The second spicier version was created in 1979 by Max Gavarry
- The third currently available version which is on the market today 2024 and is not attributed to anyone in particular but seems to have gradually morphed into being little by little as Dior executives cut costs. This is the one that bears little relationship to either Robert’s or Gavarry’s creations.
- The fourth version is coming soon as Francoise Demachy, Dior’s current in house perfumer is currently working on a new version of Dioressence.
This brings me to consider the name of this perfume – Dioressence. Doesn’t this seem to say this perfume is the essence of Christian Dior and to dig deeper – the essence of society at the time it was created? Perhaps all these different versions are defining the essence of Dior and the society at the times they came out. It is the job of fashion houses to both make trends and follow them. For example the 1969 version was a barbaric perfume for the 1970s – the age of sex drugs and Rock ‘n Roll. Liberalism before it got bogged down and restrictive. If you were going to be cool and hip and a woman that is the vibe you wanted for better or for worse. It was the time of danger – the time when women were forced to embrace danger. Woodstock happened in 1968 and the world was alive with the sound of music. I feel that 1969 was a year in which they could see ahead and predict what would be happening in the 70s.
The 1979 version calmed down on the barbaric level but became spicier – thus a spicy oriental – a big perfume for the opulent 1980s – with its extreme more is more fashions with their their over-the-top silhouettes, big shoulders, teased hair, saturated colors, puffed sleeves, flashy skirts, spandex, velour, shiny satin, voluminous parachute pants and power suits. The 80s was a bold excess decade, peak Japan, leveraged buyouts, the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gecco, “Greed is Good”, corporate buyouts, cocaine, yuppies, the focus was less on free love, but more decadent in a way. A woman needed to smell good if she was going to stand out amidst all that!
The supermodel phenomenon started in the late 80s and exploded in the 90s co-inciding with a growing media landscape and increasing pop culture interest in fashion.
Mid 80s – the 90s was the Aids Scare, in the late 80s and early 90s Dior was experiencing financial constraints, in the 90s the US was in an economic slump, the UK was in a recession as well. Subdued style suddenly made sense so the revival of minimalism came forward as luxury style. The opulence of the 1980s was taken over in the 90s by a revival of luxury. John Galliano was hired as Creative Director by Dior to revive luxury and bring people back to Dior – get them interested in Luxury again. That was in 1995. And this he achieved from 1996 – 2011.
In popular culture fashion in the 90s engaged in a wide variety of styles, that cycled in and out very quickly. There was always something new, always something a bit controversial, something for everyone. There was reinvention and restlessness in the fashion of the 90s – minimalism, revival of luxury, retro-revivals, grunge, deconstruction and the avant-garde, environmentalism and the global wardrobe. There was hip-hop, rave culture and sports-inspired style. This is the period from which the third generation of Dioressence, the one still available is stores, evolved.
Fashion is and always has always been a signifier of social status and self-expression and a sign of the times – so it will be interesting to see what the upcoming fourth version of Dioressence becomes.
Back to the history of Dioressence:
Guy Robert, was the legendary nose responsible for creating the original barbaric Dioressence in 1969. In The Emperor of Scent, Chandler Burr recounts Luca Turin telling the story of how Dior executives asked Robert to create a fragrance that was “animalic”, would live up to the slogan le parfum barbare, and would be called Dioressence (p. 146, paperback edition). The rest was up to Robert. He didn’t have a firm direction for the fragrance until kismet intervened and Robert washed his ambergris-coated hands with soap impregnated with the scent of a Miss Dior knock-off. Voila! Animal and elegance with a clear tie to Dior.
Burr goes on to record Turin’s response to the current, reformulated version of Dioressence – the third and currently sold version, “t’s now a lie, a total lie to the original, to what it was.” Later, Turin wrote in his now defunct blog, “The last time the word barbare was used in earnest in perfumery was in the 1969 slogan of Dioressence, and that was the genuine article with a weird, scary, overripe, almost garbage-like note.” I read all of this before I ever smelled Dioressence, but I was still eager to smell it, no matter what the version. A “weird, scary” note? Who could resist that? What, on earth, did that description mean?
Burr continues, saying, ” I arranged for a sample of vintage 1969 version of Dioressence through a swap, and eagerly sprayed it on my arm. It kicked off with an intriguing mix of soap and rot. The rot was not musky like body odor, but decomposed, like the vague dead squirrel smell I catch here and there in Guerlain Jicky and Shalimar. The rot smell faded to the background, and a gorgeous floral bouquet, languorous and spicy, nudged in, supremely blended and supremely French in feel. For all its richness, Dioressence wasn’t heavy, and even though the sample was only of the Eau de Toilette, it lasted for hours. I had to have a bottle of it.”
So, he acquired a bottle of the version number three , the one currently available today, and he said, “Yes, my new bottle of the reformulated Dioressence was a bitter disappointment. I felt robbed. The sample I’d first tried and fell in love with must have been vintage. Instead of a compelling, odd, but beautiful scent, I had a bottle of pleasant, rosy, spicy, soapy fragrance that lasted on the skin two hours, tops. I should have been warned when I saw that Dior had moved away from its original barbare description of Dioressence toward the innocuous “mysterious Orient” theme.”
Dior’s website currently, in August 2024, describes Dioressence as a “spicy oriental” and lists its top notes as aldehydes, greens and fruit; its heart as jasmine, geranium, cinnamon, carnation, orris, ylang ylang and tuberose; and its base as patchouli, oak moss, vetiver, vanilla and musk.
All I can say is: Dior, shame on you. I see that recently Dior decided to make the classic fragrances (Miss Dior, Diorella, Diorissimo, and Dioressence) more exclusive in the United States by selling them only at Saks Fifth Avenue. Dior also recently released three expensive, limited edition fragrances (La Collection Particuliere). None of these moves toward repositioning Dior perfume as truly top shelf will succeed as long as the juice is a cheap imitation of its original glory. I’d rather pay twice as much for a vintage bottle of Dioressence (which will last me twice as long having twice the persistence, by the way) than buy a new bottle any day. Poor Guy Robert.
Dioressence : Today
Unfortunately, as Dior suffered financial hardships in the late 1980s, the quality of the formula began to decline, and the version you can find in stores today is a legacy of that period. Little by little the barbaric perfume has morphed into a sheer green infusion of moss and soapy rose. It’s pleasant, but bland. Even the current Christian Dior in-house perfumer Francois Demachy admitted in an interview that he also dislikes the current Dioressence, ( that is the on e being sold now in 2024) which bears little relationship to either Robert’s 1969 or Gavarry’s 1979 creations. This interview is from a Russian issue of GQ and frankly addresses and explains the problems perfumers and consumers are having with current releases of the famous old perfumes. It is very worth reading.
Some people blame the changing fashions, others point to the severity of current fragrance regulations. Guy Robert only shrugged his shoulders and said, “The fashion now is to be afraid, we used these so-called dangerous ingredients for hundreds of years, and nothing happened.”
Apparently, Francois Demachy is currently working on a new version of Dioressence, and I hope that one day we might find this fragrance made, again, with quality ingredients and with at least a hint of a tantalizing barbaric streak! When is is launched it will be version four.
Coming next: Images of the Brutal Furs from Dior’s 1969 Fall/Winter Collection!
Meanwhile: I advise you to hunt down, collect, wear and enjoy your favorite vintage perfumes.
Rare and beautiful historic clothing and accessories and vintage fragrances are for sale in my online shops. I also offer a collection of vintage Christian Dior jewelry and vintage furs. If you see something on this blog that you are interested in buying, but do not find it for sale in my shops message me on Etsy or Ebay and I will get back to you about availability. I check messages daily and can always prepare a special listing for you if you do not find it already listed in the shops. Some perfumes and vintage furs and fur trimmed items are currently listed for sale in my shops and others will be listed as they are ready to sell. Items are always in process of being readied for listing so all inventory is not already listed and photographed. Feel free to message me on Ebay or Etsy if you are seeking something in particular as I may have it or be able to find it for you. There are contact seller buttons on all listings in the stores which allow you to write me messages.
