Miss Dior by Dior

A true gem of the floral chypre, what a pity it’s no longer available. The galbanum here is perfect and rounded. To me, this fragrance encapsulates the true concept of aesthetic harmony and balance, something increasingly lost (the old school) that I defend wholeheartedly, without rejecting modern perfumery. I hope this forum helps rescue lost treasures from memory. Personality: 10/10, longevity: 10/10. The scent is transporting and magnificent.

A few days ago I received a package with three 5ml samples of Dior: Miss Dior EDT, Poison Esprit and Dune. Although I’m not sure of the exact year, I estimate they’re from the 90s, as Dune launched in 1990. Starting with Miss Dior, it begins green and lovely, I imagine the galbanum; then it settles into wood, and later a earthy-mossy note emerges, giving it freshness. Of all the Miss Diors, I’d only tried the 2017 version before, and they’re totally different in scent and quality; I prefer this vintage without doubt. I loved it. Edit: I finished the miniature with regret, not sure if I’ll find another like it, but I’m glad to have discovered this gem that will always remain among my favourites.

Liquid elegance, Olympic beauty. Zeus turned into a shower of gold to seduce Danae, and Aphrodite would have splashed Miss Dior on both gods and mortals. Born in a post-war era of reclaimed freedom, created by Christian Dior to smell like love itself. Beautiful and free, like Aphrodite rising from the sea foam. It is dreamlike, however corny that may sound. I first knew it through my aunt; I felt a fascination whenever I saw the bottle on her shelf. My memories are tied to trips to the cinema or theatre, with her stiletto heels and wild silk jackets. Just gazing at the bottle used to dazzle me. She would pull me out of school boredom, knowing that with her, new experiences awaited. Holding my hand, the galbanum, moss, labdanum and leather soothed me like an exotic elixir. Today she is 85 and has long since stopped wearing it. I bought her a bottle of the Demachy version from 2013, thinking only the presentation had changed, but I was ignorant of the holocaust of reformulations. When she tried it, she said it was nice, but I remember her face of disillusionment. She switched to softer EDTs. I gave her a whiff of Cabochard 2019, whose resemblance is intentional, but her memory can no longer stretch that far. It is the most elegant aldehyde bomb I have ever smelled, and no one will convince me that anything surpasses it. It seemed out of reach due to its aura and price, though I do not rule out saving for a vintage EDP bottle. I console myself with my Cabochard 2019, very beautiful, but not quite as much as her. Miss Dior is beautiful among the beautiful and it is impossible to be more so.

Testing vintage perfumes brings me the same joy as a child in a sweet shop. There is nothing comparable in quality, nuance and depth. Miss Dior is an interesting collection of contradictions: an exuberant bouquet of floral aldehydes in a bottle that looks masculine with its cat-eye patterns. The top is an absolute delight, alternating fresh bergamot and sage with the resinous charm of galbanum, gardenia and radiant aldehydes, wrapped in an animalic dirtiness before the feminine varnish. Miss Dior plays with an ingenuity that contradicts its complexity, resulting in being shamelessly sexier than its presentation suggests. Perhaps, made for a woman in her forties, it represents a socially repressed but prominent sexuality hidden in the secret of the sheets. Vintage flowers are wonderful, bruised over a base of leather and tobacco, cut with something sharp and green to make them shine. I wish to travel back in time and be in a café with a woman wearing this elixir, savouring every moment. When Dior perfumes were works of art, uncompromising chypres, arranged like an evening gown in an elegant hotel. A sensual, challenging and sophisticated experience. For a trained nose, it is undeniably of yesterday, and that is why it is more precious. Miss Dior is a green chypre that will never go out of fashion, created by a master hand with much love. Outstanding.

Miss Dior belongs to a nature too wild and distant, like animals extinct due to human hands. On a sad afternoon, I needed such a being to accompany me. It is like walking at night through the corridors of a castle mansion from Terence Fisher films, not for artifice but for darkness, yet the gleam of its elegance makes it beautiful. It reminds me of clothes recovered from a graveyard, candlesticks, and candles almost burnt out. It possesses a non-eclectic charisma, made to seduce without intending to conquer simple noses. Its keyword is ‘extinct’. It is an extinct scent of so many disappeared things, like old clothes in a drawer with soaps, herbs, and lost photographs. It is a portrait of an era where you perfumed yourself to fit pre-established norms, with relentless sobriety but great sensitivity; minutes later, it smells like a dressing room of beautiful, intelligent, and ladylike women. I imagine how she combs her hair with a comb engraved with her initials. A wonder, a purity of breed. It hurts to think that the sweetness of this extinct feline was known only in the dawn of its loss. There is no doubt that losing this perfume means losing more than a liquid; one loses one of the finest DNA strands of perfumery.

I had the fortune of owning this excellent vintage creation, the one shown in the picture, many years ago. You have no idea of the beauty it was, how complex, distinctive, and opulent. It alluded to the strong side of a woman, like Zsa Zsa Gabor, María Félix, or Ava Gardner, precious, with an overwhelming presence that did not flinch. That was Miss Dior when I first knew it. I cannot describe its evolution because I was only ten years old when my mother gifted it to me (she did not like it); it was difficult to decipher the notes. I shall speak of the soul of vintage Miss Dior: it smelled herbal, dusty, with dry tints. Today I would say it smelled of moss, galbanum, leather, patchouli, vetiver, lily root, carnation, and narcissus. At first, it could be strong, dry, and perhaps masculine, but as it settled on the skin, the herbal touch became elegant and powdery, with flowers among which I clearly remember the narcissus and the carnation. I see it as very woody; for me, it was herbal, with the wood perhaps only in the background like a soft breeze. It is a pity and a frustration that they tear apart creations so beautiful, taking away their soul, like leaving a flower without its perfume. Miss Dior was elegant, seductive, intense, and with great personality, a true jewel.

Miss Dior was born in 1947 right as the war was ending and Dior launched the ‘New Look’. It was for young brave new girls. Olfactorily it was way ahead of its time: it sold incredibly well even beating giants like L’Air Du Temps by Nina Ricci. Fun fact: Eva Perón and Rita Hayworth wore it. Today the original from the 40s smells like a 70s chypre: green soapy rough and crisp like wet grass in mud with clean flowers and aldehydes. It’s aggressive yet cheerful with smoky touches of galbanum and the sweetness of labdanum. It’s electric earthy and brilliant. Longevity is good and the sillage is moderate. In 2010 it was ‘remastered’ to resemble Coco Mademoiselle and the result was a bit cheesy and boring. The current Miss Dior Originale tries to evoke the 40s but doesn’t quite pull it off.

It’s the perfume I miss the most along with Envy and La Nuit. It’s still in production but it’s not the same. The original I wore as a child (from the 80s) was like rolling in clean mud fresh water with cold flowers and herbs with a second note that smelled of some distant animal. It’s clean/dirty chypre crisp and narcotic in its cleanliness. It’s not a seductive femme fatale type; it’s natural pure and atavistic without adornments. It’s unisex as if the Earth gave birth to a perfume and they put it in a beautiful bottle. I miss it so much.

Miss Dior hit the market in 1947 right at the end of the Second World War alongside the establishment of Dior’s ‘New Look’. The fragrance was part of the ensemble promoting a young debutant but firm and audacious public. In terms of aromatic vision I see it as a fragrance quite ahead of its time. It quickly became a sales success standing out because it had titans like L’Air Du Temps by Nina Ricci as competition. As a curiosity it was worn by personalities such as Eva Perón and actress Rita Hayworth. I consider Miss Dior a fragrance ahead of its time; it could easily pass unnoticed as a 70s launch appealing to that structure of soapy crisp and rough chypre chords found in fragrances like Clinique’s Aromatics Elixir Chanel N°19 or even Diorella. It seems an immediate response to what was then Carven’s Ma Griffe. Quickly it wasn’t a gentle fragrance; in fact it was enthusiastic in a rather jovial but aggressive and chaotic sense. It had a terribly herbaceous rough dry sharp and crisp profile; it recalled the aroma of herbs submerged in mud caused by rain combined with a series of diffuse floral notes spread by a classic layer of clean and soapy aldehydes. Miss Dior managed to combine the earthy tone of green notes with the cleanliness of floral and aldehyde chords to obtain a unique effervescent and magnetic piece that seemed to bubble with joy. Occasionally it manifested certain smoky and dry nuances reminiscent of incense (from the galbanum note) and visceral sweet/balsamic tones of labdanum and ambiguous flowers. Miss Dior was a multidimensional perfume; it had the best of classic chypres: the astringent sharp concise and violent edges and combined them with the tenderness of psychedelic aldehydes that provided an aroma so ambiguous it didn’t seem to be anything of those components that formed it. Green crisp electric clean and supremely earthy. Miss Dior was simply a brilliant fragrance in many aspects. Longevity was excellent and the sillage was moderate. In 2010 it received a ‘remasterisation’ where it was adapted to the emerging context of neo-chypres of the new millennium or in other words a response/imitation of Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle was formulated the name was kept (with a very ugly surname in parentheses) and a fragrance was sold that in my opinion is simply dull and cheesy (without mentioning its flood of flankers many -if not all- forgettable). Currently a Miss Dior (Originale) is offered that in theory recalls or evokes the 40s fragrance with very little success if I may say so.

I absolutely love this perfume; it’s elegant and exquisite.

No one knows what the original was like but what was sold in perfumeries between 1998 and 1999 was exquisite… very similar to what Avon later made with Timeless.