With Vetiver, the new exclusive fragrance from "La Collection Couturier Parfumeur", Christian Dior has now its own "vetiver extraordinaire" in a couture laser-cut interpretation. This is "vetiver essential" in its purest shape - no facets, no additional notes, nothing from the raw and brutal natural material, no frou-frou.
François Demachy achieved a linear perfume like the purest gray day tailleur of Christian Dior. He took the vetiver, a very purified essence, where only the woody dry notes are present (not the smoky Java facet) and combined it with the most obvious bitter note, grapefruit. This is the whole perfume, a short and concise idea, a third only vetiver underlined with a robusta coffee note. Its not the sweet cup found in a famous flanker from Mugler (or previously in a Rochas perfume) but the raw absolute smelling like the coffee shop and "replacing" with its woody undertones the smoked elements of natural vetiver. The perfume sits between "Vetiver Extraordinaire" of Dominique Ropion and Sycomore of Jacques Polge and retains the light burnt aspect, an idea previously found in the interpretation of Sycomore - velvety airy woody and peppery - and its more recent "version" Gray Vetiver (Tom Ford). Also, a very soft white flower reminds the original note found in Me Myself and I (Ego Facto). The drydown reveals a very fragile woody-coumarine-ambery facet and soft musky note, an accord that can be found in the very recent examples from Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent. François Demachy takes the modern perfumes built around the vetiver note and he extracts their essence - this is how vetiver is done today, like a standard note before the ornaments: “Vetiver can be used in a thousand ways; this time, I wanted to make it hedonistic. It is the unexpected combination of robust, almost rough Haitian Vetiver with a South American Robusta Coffee, a note evoking pleasure the way we like to smell it in the morning”
Vetiver (Christian Dior) is not a very outstanding original perfume, but it smells extremely good and essential, like the most basic suit you can imagine, done in a couture atelier. Like the soft and powdery Dior Homme, this one is the perfect scent for the white shirt, an expression of modern minimalism in perfumery. The recent exhibition at Dior Museum in Granville was about dandyism and Christian Dior and somehow this sophisticated, refined atmosphere was captured. Do we smell the Parisian smoking rooms of the 20's and 30's and their white architecture? Maybe, but it's a very modern vision with a cup of vetiver.
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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
