Continuing my look at the new seven fragrance collection from Christian Dior under the creative auspices of Francois Demachy, M. Demachy was attempting to use these new fragrances to help illuminate phases of Christian Dior’s life. The three fragrances in Part One were Cologne Royale, New Look 1947, and Mitzah and if you missed those reviews you can read them here. I’ll finish up with the final four starting with Vetiver.
Vetiver is the simplest construction and yet one of the best fragrances in the whole collection. M. Demachy composes a two-note simple fragrance taking a naked vetiver and pairing it with a refined coffee note. The vetiver is so primal it has a natural, almost wild, feel to it. Then, ever so slowly, as if a pot of fine coffee was brewing underneath it the tendrils of the rich coffee rise up into the edgy grassiness of the vetiver to create this rough yet refined beast. If you are not a fan of vetiver, the note, you will not be a fan of Vetiver, the fragrance, because it is all vetiver all the time. I do like vetiver quite a bit and by using the coffee as both complement and contrast M. Demachy has created a gourmand vetiver as simple as that first brewed cup in the morning. This will definitely be part of my summer rotation this year with my other favorite vetivers.
The other fragrance in the collection with its notes listed on the bottle is Leather Oud. With 2010 feeling like maybe oud had moved on 2011 looks positively packed with new oud fragrances coming out in a rush. I will be surprised if many of them surpass Leather Oud in quality. Leather Oud is the best fragrance of the seven new fragrances in the collection. It still lags behind both Eau Noire and Bois D’Argent but that is not a bad place to rank. Just like Vetiver, Leather Oud sports what it is right on the label. The oud comes out and it is a smoky slightly resinous oud. It has a lot in common in the early going with By Kilian Pure Oud as it feels like both fragrances share a similar source of the agarwood and both also choose to accentuate the smoky characteristic present in oud. But as the leather begins to muscle in on the action the animalic feel of it turns the oud much more exotic and as a few resinous notes fill out the background the exoticism is enhanced. Leather Oud is a sumptuous feast of strong notes presented in a straightforward fashion which makes it as good as it gets when it comes to ouds.
The final two fragrances in the collection are both meant to evoke towns that Christian Dior spent time in. Milly-La –Foret is said to be a town, near Paris, where Christian Dior and his mother spent time walking through the floral gardens that were present throughout the city. M. Demachy chooses to accentuate the floral aspect of that milieu in the heart of things. A burst of citrus comes before the flowers as jasmine and iris dominate the middle of Milly-La-Foret there is just a hint of green but overall the heart is a powdery soft floral veil. White musk arrives to takes us into a soft sandalwood base which feels appropriate for this most feminine of the seven new fragrances. Milly-La-Foret is for those who like softer quieter fragrances as it is the only one of the fragrances in the whole collection that I can use those adjectives for.
Granville finishes the new fragrances and it is based on the Normandy town Christian Dior spent his child hood in. Granville is the most challenging of these new fragrances by M. Demachy and it is the one I had the hardest time deciding whether I like it or not. The opening is a bracing herbal citrus flare consisting of thyme and rosemary intermixed with lemon. It is at turns strongly aromatic and at others tartly astringent it almost feels as if a battle is being waged between the citrus and herbs. As they tire themselves out a deeply resinous pine contrasted with gorse arrive and this conjures a seaside town with the wind swirling through the pines wafting the sappy mentholated smell over the gorse in bloom. It was this aspect of Granville that I have had the most struggle with; there are moments where the gorse feels like the perfect complement to the pine and other times I wish it wasn’t there. I think this is going to be one of those fragrances that the more I wear it and enjoy it the more I’m going to wonder why I ever had a problem with the presence of the gorse. Granville finishes with less challenging woods, sandalwood most prominently, and with a hint of wood smoke. There is a part of me that believes as time passes I am going to come to like Granville most of all from this collection.
Vetiver and Leather Oud have amazing longevity, still going strong the next morning on me. Milly-La-Foret and Granville also have quite above average longevity but not up to the level of the other two. The sillage on Vetiver, Leather Oud, and Granville is above average and Milly-La-Foret slightly below average.
It seems like there have been a number of perfumers putting out large collections of at least five fragrances over the past twelve to fifteen months. I am beginning to wonder if the size of these offerings are doing a disservice to the less immediately interesting fragrances. I am sure that fragrances like Mitzah, Vetiver, and Leather Oud will do very well because they wear their fragrant heart on their sleeve. I worry about the more shy fragrances that take a little time to get to know like New Look 1947, Milly-La-Foret, and Granville being lost in the stampede to get to the other three. Especially in the case of Granville I think there might be a risk of it being overlooked and that would be a shame. I trust that Christian Dior will not be in too much of a hurry to judge the early slow sellers as failures as they might eventually be seen as the more classic fragrances of the whole set. I can say that, with the exception of Cologne Royale, there is something to be enjoyed in all of these fragrances.
Disclosure: This review was based on decants purchased from The Perfumed Court.
–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor