New Look
Eau de Parfum, Christian Dior (2024)

A refreshing bit of unexpected weirdness from the Dior exclusives, which usually tend to err on the side of crowd pleasing more than artistry or uniqueness.

I smell a lot of clove, the dusty old-fashioned kind reminiscent of Caron, paired up with frankincense. But this is reigned over by a seaside smell that reminds me of walking along the tidepools of the Oregon coast, very salty and a more than a little bit funky and fishy. It's the smell of the ocean, but rocky and cold as opposed to "beachy".

So yeah... salty ocean, dusty clove, and frankincense. I can't imagine that the fashion girls sniffing Dior's fruity floral exclusives will like this at all, but it's certainly interesting. I like that it tries to modernize the incense perfume by leaving out the 00's smoke that generally defines the genre, and I like that this uses ocean smells without being stereotypically "marine" or "aquatic", so I'm voting thumbs up, though I personally don't think it smells very good on me...

I'm wearing my free sample of 2024 Dior New Look in preparation for watching the Apple show "The New Look" about Dior and Chanel after World War II. What could I anticipate about the show, the historical subject matter, or the "New Look" fashion line by sniffing this perfume? It is definitely minimalist and ice cold, and Kurkdjian is probably evoking the subtle geometry of houndstooth, the fitted, corseted plainness of the Bar suit, the more-modest-than-a-nun cap sleeved mid-length dress, and the absence of adornment generally. It is remarkably similar to Oriza Legrand's Apothéose, which I was told was based on an unchanged 1918 formula. I initially found Apothéose so unwearable that I nearly discarded it, but now, wearing it side by side with the 2024 New Look, I find both scents quite interesting. Apothéose has top notes of Eucalyptus and pepper, middle notes of rose and ylang ylang, and base notes of musk and benzoin. Dior New Look theoretically has nothing in common with those notes. New Look manages the feat of making Apothéose, which Colbourne described as being like "freshly laundered shirt starched with Niagara, and the cotton that's used to keep pills in a bottle fresh," seem warm, via the peppery musk. New Look is far more ineffable than Apothéose, which adheres for the duration--by contrast, New Look truly fades into the saintly hygienic ethers. Popular reaction to New Look leans toward the laundry detergent or windex quality of sharp, aldehydic frankincense, and I admit that when I first put it on from a free sample in a package, I looked hard at the bottle to make sure I hadn't mistaken a make up remover for a fragrance. But a more sympathetic understanding of the perfume is along the lines of gin and tonic, luxury hotel clean sheets, and the rarity of a truly non-floral perfume. This is resin, amber (more resin) and aldehydes, and when you think of it, it is crystalline. Houndstooth crystal? Crystal with cap sleeves? A fitted, angular white bar suit laid out on the fresh hotel sheets? I'm just one bar of the choir of well-shampooed angels away from giving this a thumbs up.