Dioressence

Dioressence is one of Dior's great classics, launched in 1969 and composed by Guy Robert, the perfumer of Calèche for Hermès. Its name welds the house's name to the word essence. It is sold today as an eau de toilette, in the Les Créations de Monsieur Dior collection.

A commission for an animalic perfume

Luca Turin recounted the birth of the perfume in a story taken up by Chandler Burr in The Emperor of Scent. Dior is said to have asked Guy Robert for a frankly animalic feminine perfume, which would be called Dioressence and carry the slogan “the barbaric perfume.”

The perfume was meant to accompany a fur collection from the house. The commission broke with the floral, luminous compositions that had made the reputation of Dior perfumes: the aim was to bring in animalic character without giving up the house's elegance.

Ambergris and soap

According to this account, Guy Robert experimented without finding anything that satisfied him. His hands were steeped in ambergris when he washed them, at Dior's headquarters, with a soap scented with an imitation of Miss Dior. From this chance encounter, the idea for the perfume is said to have been born.

The first Dioressence is thus described as an amber, animalic chypre, related to Miss Dior through its chypre base, but which brought animalic character to the fore where its predecessor kept it at a distance.

Successive reworkings

The perfume was reworked in the late 1970s, in a version associated with the name of Max Gavarry. One review that compared the original, this version and the current one describes smelling three distinct perfumes in them: an amber, animalic chypre, a spicy and full oriental, and a pale green chypre.

The house's discourse has changed as well. Dior abandoned the barbaric register of its early days for that of a voluptuous, mysterious Orient, which remains the register of its current presentation. The perfume has since changed bottle and formula again in the late 2000s.

Today's eau de toilette

Dior presents the current version as a very feminine oriental, with a mysterious sensuality, and reduces its description to three essences: Egyptian geranium, Ceylon cinnamon and Indonesian patchouli. Its presentation says nothing of the reworkings, nor of the animalic character of the 1969 perfume.