The Power of Polarizing Perfumes

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The unveiling of a new perfume typically goes like this: Beauty editors and influencers are invited to an exclusive meet-and-greet, where they sniff blotter strips spritzed with the eau du jour. They wave the samples under their discerning noses and make polite sounds of pleasure. Everyone is happy, if noncommittal. There’s a new perfume in the world, and it’s…pretty good.

At the Paris launch of the latest Dior La Collection Privée perfume, held in a vaulted white room within the Palais de Tokyo, things went a little differently. When Dior perfumer Francis Kurkdjian handed out blotters of New Look, his latest creation for the house’s prestige fragrance line, there were two very distinct reactions. Some sniffers’ eyes lit up as though a switch had been thrown, their expressions registering a joyful hit of something unforeseen and ineffably wonderful. Others put the blotters down quickly, brows furrowed with bewilderment. Clearly, we were in the presence of something exciting: a genuinely polarizing scent.

Many now iconic fragrances were shockers when they first appeared. In the ’90s the love-it-or-hate-it praline-and-patchouli accord in Thierry Mugler’s Angel created an entirely new perfume category—gourmand—that is still popular today. In 1977 YSL’s notoriously controversial Opium set the stage for the effusive, get-me-off-this-elevator perfumes of the 1980s. Even Chanel No. 5, with its revolutionary use of aldehydes, was, to the neophyte noses of the 1920s, an initially disconcerting proposition. Perfumes that spark a passionate response are always memorable—especially when they awaken us to a type of beauty we may not previously have considered.

You are wondering, of course: What does New Look smell like? An open window. An airplane wing. A Brancusi sculpture. Modernity, movement, self-assurance. It has the metallic smoothness of cold steel, and the electric warmth of human skin. What does it not smell like? Flowers. Fruit. Perfume. In its transparent audacity it is as much a statement of intent as it is a statement scent.

A streamlined composition with effervescent aldehydes at the top, shimmery frankincense in the middle, and radiant amber at the base, New Look is fragrance as architecture. Imagine a column of light that progresses from bright white to pale gray but never loses its glow. As precise as it is pretty, the scent harks back to the poised, defined silhouette of Christian Dior’s 1947 New Look collection. “The idea of shape and structure was extremely important to Christian Dior,” says Kurkdjian, “and it is the same with perfume. This fragrance is very minimal, which is close to the rigor of couture. I wanted it to convey that craftsmanship, as well as a certain sleekness.”

Kurkdjian’s creation also proves that something made from traditional materials can still be radical. Frankincense, after all, is one of the oldest aromatic substances used by humankind. In fragrance, everything old is new again. Estée Lauder just relaunched five of its classic perfumes, reformulated by none other than Frédéric Malle, who decluttered the formulas like an art restorer removing oxidation from Old Master paintings. Now they smell exhilarating: Private Collection, Ms. Lauder’s revelatory green masterpiece, is as fresh as a snapped stem; Azurée, which was conceived in 1969 as a riff on men’s scent Aramis, with notes of sage and leather, now radiates a very au courant genderless cool. Le Labo’s latest, Lavande 31, modernizes lavender by infusing it with bergamot, neroli, and musk. And new brand Future Society couldn’t be more OG: Its scents are based on the olfactive DNA of extinct flowers.

A fragrance that will become a classic—blast from the past or not—owes its impact to the tenor of the time in which it hits. What’s shocking today is rarely shocking tomorrow, but shockwaves carry. “I didn’t name New Look after Dior’s 1947 collection but as a reference to the way that fashion moment trickled down to the streets,” Kurkdjian says. “I love the idea that an elevated creative vision can have an impact on day-to-day life.” Want to test this theory? Just spray on New Look and count the beats before you see someone else’s eyes light up.

New Look

Private Collection Legacy Eau de Parfum, 3.4 oz.

Le Labo Lavande 31 Eau de Parfum at Nordstrom, Size 1.7 Oz

Grassland Opera

This story appears in the March 2024 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

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