Have you ever wondered what goes into making your favourite perfumes? The ones you spritz every day with a heady joy, that bring a smile to your face and remind your loved ones of you when the scent crosses their path?
Well, French fashion house Dior have opened a window to their creative process in new documentary Inside The Dream, which is now available to stream on Amazon Prime.
The new feature, which is produced by Terminal 9 Studios and directed by Matthieu Menu, brings audiences into the hallowed creative halls of Dior, to observe as famed perfumer Francis Kurkdjian creates his very first fragrance composition for the maison.
Instilled as Dior’s Perfume Creation Director, there’s no denying that there was a lot of pressure for Kurkdjian to communicate his own flare alongside the house’s decades-long dedication to creating perfume magic: the likes of J’adore, Miss Dior, and Sauvage (their masculine offering) come to mind.
As the mastermind behind fragrances such as Baccarat Rouge 540, it’s safe to say that Dior was in very safe hands.
The film centers on the legend of the J’adore fragrance, first created in 1999 by Calice Becker, for which Charlize Theron is the ambassador. The famed golden bottle has long been the heart and soul of the maison’s offering, with a delicate, clean and classic scent designed to last the test of time.
As his first foray at Dior, Kurkdjian reimagined the iconic scent, leaning into those golden notes and accentuating and heightening the beauty of the J’adore flowers for a full and voluptuous scent encompassing orange blossom, jasmine grandiflorum and centifolia rose absolutes.
The film takes us behind the scenes, from Paris to Los Angeles, to the flower fields of Grasse and India, and brings in the stars, creatives, decision-makers and fragrance experts who all contribute to the creation of this next big moment for the house.
Watch the documentary trailer here:
The captivating documentary is a celebration of the painstaking and exemplary endeavours of those who choose to create at the utmost level, reaching for the exceptional.
However, it also explores fragrance down to its very roots, to the people who nurture the ingredients and florals to life.
“You have to have a clear mind, to smell,” Kurkdjian says in the trailer. “You get the smell but you forget where it comes from, how it was grown and by whom.”
We get glimpses into the flower fields, the labs, the very people whose essence becomes imbued in the final, refined product that is a golden bottle of L’or de J’adore.
“The best and simplest stories have the greatest impact,” he continues. “It must be good. It has to be good.”
A clear, simple challenge, to create something truly remarkable.
Watch Inside the Dream now on Prime Video.
