The gardens of Christian Dior bloom again in Dior Paradise

The 19th-century Château de La Colle Noire was Christian Dior’s Provençal bolthole, a world away from his busy dressmaking atelier on Paris’ central avenue Montaigne. The couturier bought the house and its surrounding gardens and orchards in 1951. Since 2013, the estate has been the property of Parfums Christian Dior.

A short drive away from Grasse – which since the 17th century has been known as the global capital of perfumery – Château de La Colle Noire has long had an affiliation with all things scented. In its gardens, Christian Dior cultivated fragrant flowers including jasmine, purple-petalled lavender and roses. The site’s grounds are also home to trees bearing fruits, almonds and olives. A horticultural Eden, the landscaped land surrounding the Château de La Colle Noire was also Christian Dior’s tribute to the gardens his mother planted in Normandy at Villa Les Rhumbs, his grand belle-époque childhood home.

It’s this mise en scène that inspired Francis Kurkdjian to create Dior Paradise, a new addition to the maison’s La Collection Privée Christian Dior line of prestige perfumes.

‘At Dior, everything begins and ends in a garden,’ says Kurkdjian. The French-Armenian perfumer, who grew up in Paris, joined Parfums Christian Dior as the business’ creative director in 2021, where he now gives olfactory expression to references, ideas and influences drawn from Christian Dior’s life and work. Dior Paradise, his latest release, sets a blend of citrus top notes (mandarin, lime, oranges) against a tonka bean base. For a middle note, the core of a perfume that unfolds once top notes have faded, Kurkdjian worked with bitter almond, a nod to Christian Dior’s orchards. ‘The bitter almond came first, the mandarin came after. The bitter almond is rarely highlighted in perfumery,’ he explains. ‘The heart of Dior Paradise offers a mouth-watering treat, like an irresistible almond biscuit.’