He breathed new life into luxury perfumery as well as haute couture. Grasse marks 70 years of Dior fragrances by spotlighting the timeless perfumes of this man who loved the South.

While the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris celebrates Dior the couturier this summer, until 1 October the Musée International de la Parfumerie reveals an inspired and innovative perfumer. “We wanted to show Dior the artist and his fascinating life so closely connected with the South,” explains Olivier Quiquempois, director of Grasse museums. The future couturier and perfumer’s original “flower woman” was Madeleine Dior, who inspired a wonderful world in her child. At the family home in Granville, Normandy, she cultivated a garden that became the joint creation of mother and son. After the Roaring Twenties then the 1929 financial crash, Dior’s father, now a widower, started a new life in Callian, in the Var, where the young man discovered the Southern light and reconnected with his love of nature alongside his sister Catherine, who became a cut-flower agent and grew the sublime Centifolia rose. “When Christian Dior launched his first collection in 1947 it was an immediate worldwide success,” Olivier Quiquempois continues, “and he launched his perfume house that same year!” Always a visionary, Dior commissioned Grasse perfumers to create what would be his finest fragrances: Paul Vacher for Miss Dior expressing the very essence of his New Look, then Edmond Roudnitska. Prestigious perfumes followed one after another: Diorama, Eau Fraîche, Diorissimo, Eau Sauvage released after the couturier’s death. This exhibition’s 300-plus pieces – original perfume bottles through floral dresses to furniture, paintings and photographs – immerse us in the life of this avant-garde creative, culminating with the iconic J’adore in its flacon reminding us of the Miss Dior amphora. That very first perfume, now iconic, that started it all, 70 short years ago.

Exposition jusqu’au 1er octobre
Grasse, 2 bd du jeu de Ballon — Tél. 04 97 05 58 11
www.museesdegrasse.com