Through archival research and new technologies, the Dioriginals collection reconnects the house's heritage with modern perfumery.

Much like fragrance is deeply tied to memory, an iconic perfume can capture a highly specific moment in time. To consumers, its original formula may appear unchanged: the notes, the juice, even the way it wears on skin seemingly consistent over years, sometimes decades. But at the most technical level, fragrance formulas often evolve, whether because of changes in supplier availability or regulatory legislation that requires certain ingredients to be altered or removed in the interest of human and environmental safety. As a result, formulas inevitably shift—particularly those created before the fragrance industry’s move toward greater standardization in the 1970s, when an expanding list of ingredients became restricted or prohibited by the International Fragrance Association. And when a house like Dior has nearly 80 years of perfumery history to contend with, those changes can take hold in profound ways. Which is precisely why the maison’s perfume creative director, Francis Kurkdjian, is bringing 13 of its most legendary fragrances back to their original glory with the Dioriginals project.
“We decided to reshape the line and come back with the original restored versions—in the same way you would restore a piece of art—by digging into the archives and being as precise as possible,” Kurkdjian said during an early press preview for the collection at the former home of French perfumer Edmond Roudnitska in Cabris in May. “The idea is the opposite of a facelift. It’s,&nbsp;How can you go back to how it was?”
An ode to the perfumers who worked with Dior before him, including Roudnitska, Kurkdjian spent three and a half years working with the Dior perfume creative studio to bring each Dioriginals fragrance—as close as modern perfumery allows—back to its original olfactive composition. That meant removing restricted and excess ingredients, sourcing natural raw materials, and employing new technologies to develop materials capable of recreating effects that had been lost over time. “This is very difficult,” Kurkdjian said of adapting the scents while remaining true to their history. “There is a technical creativity, which is far away from being just creative as a perfumer.”

The Dioriginals collection. Courtesy of Dior.

Spanning Roudnitska’s creations from 1949 to 1972, as well as more recent fragrances through 2003, the Dioriginals collection comprises 13 scents: Diorama, Eau Fraîche, Diorissimo, Diorling, Diorella, Dioressence, Jules, Dolce Vita, Dune, Dune Homme, Higher, Forever and Ever, and Higher Energy. Each is presented in the same glass bottle design, inspired by an original Dior bottle silhouette.&nbsp;
The design is yet another manifestation of Kurkdjian’s focus for the project: heritage. “Let's go back, let’s stay true to who we are,” he says of his goal for the scents, “using modern ingredients to make them feel old.” Two fragrances in particular embody that philosophy. “Both Eau Fraîche and Diorissimo are very specific perfumes—those are two perfumes that Christian Dior has smelled. So the idea was to give back the exact perfume that Christian Dior used to smell.”
With Eau Fraîche, that meant elevating the character of the citrus fruits, reblending an aromatic basil-tarragon note that had been affected by regulations, and removing additions that had accumulated around Roudnitska’s original 1955 formula over time. For Diorissimo, Kurkdjian set out to restore the “legendary floral aspect” of Roudnitska’s masterful 1956 composition, built around lily of the valley, famously Christian Dior’s favorite flower. He restored the perfume’s entire white lily-of-the-valley floral accord and worked with a new quality of jasmine to bring its original aura back to life.&nbsp;

Diorissimo. Courtesy of Dior.

Eau Fraîche. Courtesy of Dior.

Jasmine was similarly heightened in Diorama, Roudnitska’s spicy floral chypre from 1949, and Diorling, Paul Vacher’s 1963 leather floral chypre. The latter presented additional technical challenges, requiring new solutions to enhance its aldehydic character and replace ingredients that are now prohibited, including ambrette musk. Diorella, Roudnitska’s fruity-floral 1972 fragrance, called for improvements to the quality of its bergamot, a restoration of its basil note, and a full recreation of its violet facet, all of which had been altered over the years by toxicological and regulatory requirements.&nbsp;
The collection’s more recent fragrances, for the most part, underwent lighter adaptations, with base materials reworked, notes readjusted, and minor substitutions made to comply with current regulations while preserving the balance of the original compositions. In each case, the objective was the same: not to modernize the fragrances, but to recover something that time—and the evolution of perfumery itself—had gradually taken away.&nbsp;
The full Dioriginals collection is available now at <a href="http://dior.com">dior.com</a> and in Dior boutiques.

Francis Kurkdjian Restores 13 Dior Fragrances to Their Original Glory

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