Getting To Know The Real Miss Dior
The 1947-born Miss Dior fragrance is turning a page this year – first with an updated look and formulation; and second with the publication of a biography that tells for the first time the overlooked tale of the perfume’s namesake Catherine Dior. Author Justine Picardie gives us the exclusive on her place in beauty, fashion and a turbulent world.
In the new biography Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture, author Justine Picardie gives an astonishing account of the life of Catherine Dior – the namesake behind the iconic perfume of the French luxury maison.
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Some of its most incredible chapters are dedicated to Catherine’s time as a member of the French resistance during World War II. As a liaison, she has transmitted clandestine intelligence reports to the British during the Nazi occupation until she was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to German concentration camps and tortured for information (which she did not divulge).
Catherine’s documents at the deportees’ association for political prisoners.
After the war, she returned to France and dedicated the rest of her life to flowers – a passion that she shared with her famous fashion designer brother Christian. She was in fact one of a handful of women in Paris licensed to trade in cut flowers and would later move to Provence to start her own rose farm.
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Today, these roses still go into the making of the Miss Dior perfume that she inspired; its latest version hitting stores last month. Created by house perfumer Francois Demachy, the beloved floral scent has been updated to suit modern tastes: The signature velvety rose is punctuated with soft, powdery iris; crisp, fresh peony and lily of the valley; and a subtle apricot accord, which adds a plump juiciness to the mix.
The link with couture has also persisted in the ribbon that adorns the neck of the Miss Dior bottle, which in the modern version is produced by Julien Faure, the artisanal ribbon maker founded in 1864.
These sensual tweaks are accompanied by a newly designed couture bow that adorns the neck of the bottle, crafted of a pink jacquard threaded with flecks of blue, pink and yellow by hand at one of the biggest ribbon-weaving ateliers in France.
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As much as the fragrance has evolved, Picardie asserts that its spirit remains the same as it was in 1947. Says the writer, who was formerly the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar UK: “Christian’s love for Catherine will always be an essential ingredient in every iteration of Miss Dior… It may sound like a fairy tale, but I truly believe it.”
How did the idea to write a book on Catherine Dior come about?
“I began spending time in the Dior archives in 2010 and it took a few years for the idea to emerge that the book should be about Catherine’s story: her courage, her fight for freedom and how she went on living after great suffering. There wasn’t much about Catherine in the archives when I first looked, but the more I heard from people who knew her, the more astonished I became that nobody had written about her yet even though she was the woman Christian Dior loved most.”
Why has her story been so overlooked?
“Many people wanted to forget about what had happened after the war. In France, only 1 per cent of the population were active members of the resistance – Catherine was in this tiny minority. People have always fought for freedom, democracy and liberation, but very often women and marginalised communities are forgotten and it’s the stories of men that are told.”
How integral is the Miss Dior perfume to the house of Dior?
“It almost came before the fashion! It’s interesting because Christian talked about working on Miss Dior even before he had launched the New Look (the nipped-in waist and full, calf-length skirt silhouette that catapulted him to fame and remains a brand signature). When he opened his couture house in February 1947, the scent was already sprayed throughout the maison. There’s something magical about the perfume – Christian called it a fragrance of love and that love is the magical ingredient that’s part of every iteration of Miss Dior.”
Catherine's story is immortalised in the Miss Dior perfume, but how has it filtered into the brand's fashion collections?
“I was sharing what I was discovering in my research with my friend (and Dior women’s creative director) Maria Grazia Chiuri. She hadn’t known a lot about Catherine simply because there wasn’t a lot to know then. So when Maria Grazia did a collection in 2019 inspired by Catherine’s gardening and when she launched the Caro handbag earlier this year in tribute to her (Caro was Catherine’s code name in the resistance), it came from an authentic place.”
Explain the significance of such authenticity to the mythos of Miss Dior.
“It couldn’t be more important. Luxury brands are nothing without authenticity. They create beauty, dreams and escapism, but they’re born out of legacy and fundamental truths. The truth of Catherine and Christian’s story is that there are no beautiful polished surfaces without depth. The most powerful and iconic moments of beauty arise out of human emotions like love and loss, life and death.”
After spending so much time with and on Miss Dior, what do you feel is Catherine's greatest legacy?
“The roses she planted in her garden feel like a living embodiment of her. The Provencal rose, which has such a particular place at the heart of the perfume and is still used as an ingredient today, is still in the meadows she grew. I planted these roses in my own garden in England as a tribute to Catherine. We had a really hard winter and I thought these roses – taken 805km from the South of France – would die, but they’re blooming now and they have a real strength that’s part of Miss Dior.”
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity and length.
A version of this article first appeared in the October 2021 Lifes Is Beautiful edition of FEMALE