October 19, 2026 |
On a hot day in May during this year’s Cannes Film Festival, a discreet Dior Beauty convoy ferried a small number of international editors to the hills in Cabris, near Grasse. The destination: the villa and estate of the legendary perfumer Edmond Roudnitska, Domaine Sainte Blanche, still owned by the nose’s family today.
We were escorted through the garden, which was filled with jasmine, roses, lily of the valley, sage, mastic, immortelle… the air was rich with the warmth of the sun and a blend of aromas that could make anyone dream, let alone a professional perfumer. On the top floor of the villa Francis Kurkdjian, Dior’s perfume creation director, was waiting in a large room. It had two walls that consisted almost entirely of window sand views over the undulating countryside.
This had been Roudnitska’s studio. It was here, int his very room, that fragrant Dior history was made. Roudnitska created seven fragrances for the house: Diorama (1949), Eau Fraîche (1955), Diorissimo (1956), Diorling (1963), Eau Sauvage (1966), Diorella (1972) and Dior-Dior (1976, currently discontinued). Five of these (Diorama, Eau Fraîche, Diorling, Diorissimo, Diorella) form part of 13 classic Dior fragrances – The Originals – that have now been restored to their former glory. The others, which were released between 1979 and 2003, are: Dioressence, Jules, Dune, Dolce Vita, Dune Pour Homme, Higher, Forever And Ever and Higher Energy.
“It’s always important to take care of heritage and as a brand we will be celebrating 80 years next year,” says Kurkdjian of the project. But, in truth, that is only a small part of this story. When he joined the house it was in the middle of a new round of regulatory changes in the perfume industry. There are so many of them that it’s literally a full-time job keeping track; seriously, Kurkdjian created a position for a perfumer just to take care of it. This meant looking at all of the Dior fragrances including the classics, which, of course, had already been tinkered with over the years for previous regulatory rounds, each time moving a little further away from where they started. It’s a bit like years of tweakments where the next begins where the last one left off. There had also recently been much debate in France after the fire at Notre-Dame about whether it was better to keep moving forward or try to go back to recapture an original state. Kurkdjian found himself facing a similar conundrum: “When we have to change a formula, should we adjust it to my taste or to the taste of today? Or should we go back to what it was?” he asks.
He decided to go back, strip away the changes that had been made and let the world smell these perfumes as they were originally intended. He began with those made by Roudnitska, whose first correspondence about creating a Dior fragrance dates back to 1946, a year before the maison held its legendary New Look fashion show. Serge Heftler-Louiche, a former Coty executive and Dior’s business partner (and, fun fragrance fact, the grandfather of Frédéric Malle), had convinced Dior to set up a fragrance business alongside fashion from the outset. He contacted Roudnitska, already a leading nose and responsible for the bestselling sensation Femme by Rochas, to ask him to collaborate.
Curiously, his habit was to keep half of the formula himself while Dior had the other. In order to proceed with this project, the two halves were made separately with Kurkdjian then blending them. Much detective work was required for the other perfumes, which were restored with help from noses, the manufacturer Givaudan and the IFF (International Flavors & Fragrances), all of whom went back to archives and found old formulas handwritten in books (nowadays they’re all, less romantically, typed on computers).He then recreated the original fragrance, or one, says Kurkdjian, that was “very, very, very close” to it, a pure version that could bypass regulations as it was for reference only and not for sale.
Diorissimo, introduced in 1956 by legendary perfumer Edmond Roudnitska, is one of 13 classic Dior fragrances dubbed The Originals, to be remastered by the house’s perfume creation director Francis Kurkdjian.
Still, it was no easy task to then time-travel these perfumes backwards while respecting the new regulations. “When you have to change an ingredient, it’s not just one ingredient that you change,” explains Kurkdjian. “You change the balance of the whole formula. You need to think of a formula like a building.Some walls are maintained. Sometimes you can open a window, but sometimes you can’t because if you do it just creates a hole in the building and the whole thing collapses. With a perfume, every single inclusion or thing you remove can change the whole architecture.”
Kurkdjian talked us through three restorations, starting with Eau Fraîche, the fragrance Mr Dior himself wore and one that defines the chypres (citrusnotes) category (its original name was Eau de Cologne Fraîche). The latest version on the market “has a note that’s almost like watermelon,” says Kurkdjian. “It smells a little fresh and clean but in a modern way.”To take it back to its original beauty he elevated the citrus qualities (bergamot, lemon, mandarin, orange),re-blended its signature aromatic basil-tarragon note, which had been under particular regulatory threat, and erased the alterations added over time.
For Diorissimo, the first lily of the valley fragrance, the flower obsessed over by both Dior and Roudnitska, he used the 1958 version (there were 1956 and 1957offerings by Roudnitska). The formula had latterly become less green in its floralcy, says Kurkdjian, but he has brought it back with a new quality of jasmine and restored the original colour as well as the entire white lily of the valley floral accord.
For Diorella, considered to the feminine counter part to Eau Sauvage and a perfume that offered a new take on the chypre accord, he restored peach and cumin notes that were missing. He reinstated the fruitiness, enhanced the bergamot, restored the basil note and recreated the violet facet, all of which had been regulated away for a decade. He also removed the slight soapiness that had crept in.
With all of these revisions, where possible he sent them back to the nose who had created them – in the case of Roudnitska they went to his son Michel, also a perfumer – to get their seal of approval. So, was the project fun? “Was it fun?” he echoes. “It was a beautiful project overall. But my work is fun in general. So, I’m pausing because was it more fun?” He smiles. “The whole philosophical approach is interesting. It helps us to define the line between how perfume should be consistent and how to maintain the heritage.” For fragrance followers, however, it’s unequivocal: smelling these perfumes again today as they were originally intended, and as they fragranced the winds of change of their time, is very fun indeed. It’s like re-meeting them, but way back before life (or regulations) altered them, before their place as legends was sealed and they were simply hope in a bottle. And don’t we all need a little pure hope wherever we can find it.
Photography courtesy of Parfums Christian Dior.
Issue 77 of 10 Magazine – FUTURE, LEGACY, HERITAGE – is on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
