La Collection Privée: Fève Delicieuse by Christian Dior (2015)

Nose: François Demachy

I wouldn’t say that Fève Delicieuse (“delicious bean”, or in North-Center Italian slang, “delicious d*ck”) smells completely horrid, but it’s really almost there. It doesn’t really “smell Dior”, and surely not “Collection Privée”. Not that the rest of the line was breath-taking, but Fève is basically nothing different quality-wise and overall concept-wise from the cheapest Oriental-gourmand ranges of fragrances and grooming products sold in drugstores or supermarkets. Stuff like Italian brands I coloniali, or Tesori d’Oriente - but way below Les Nereides or L’Erbolario, to give you a rough idea of how cheap this is. Imagine that kind of stuff blended with some sort of clumsy imitative Mugler-esque kind of “allure”, sort of echoing some A*Men flankers but without that consistency and playfulness (and they cost half of this anyway).

Basically Fève Delicieuse is a thick, annoyingly flat and cloyingly artificial Oriental-gourmand candy of vanilla, amber, tonka, cedar, powdery-caramel and spicy notes tinged with a tame hint of smoke and some pleasant sort of earthy-vegetable suble nuances, which are quite nondescript but help in lowering the diabete-inducing ratio of sweetness and represent the only sparkle of interest in this disgraceful bucket of dullness. There is basically no evolution and no particular “twists”, just a sticky slap of melted toffee candies laying on your skin, decreasing in power as hours pass – thus becoming more pleasant. Sweetness is the main and most feature of Fève Delicieuse: mediocre, cheap, unrealistic, alienating sweetness, truly comparable with any low-brow drugstore gourmand scent for teenagers. I was not the most enthusiastic fan of the rest of the “Collection Privée” collection apart from Leather Oud, but still I clearly got a sense of decent quality, complexity and craft among the others – or at least, some efforts for that. To this extent Fève Delicieuse is an astonishing ugly duckling among them (minus the happy ending), since it smells not only cheap, but also completely uninspired, simplistic, tired, a more than generic “déja-vu” with a crazy price tag and no reasons to exist. If you’re a fan of The Office US, then I’m Michael and this is my Toby.

4,5/10

La Collection Couturier Parfumeur: Leather Oud by Christian Dior

Year: 2010
Nose: François Demachy

Leather Oud opens with a dark and dry accord of woody oud – quite different from usual ouds, at least the Western ones (Montale etc.), really "woody" and smoky in fact, not rubbery and not synthetic – enhanced by more aromatic and softer woods (I feel sandalwood above all), an austere leather accord - a bit plastic but good, dark, "roasted" - well sweetened by beeswax and dry honey, tonka, a slight sugary note on the base, a tasty aroma of coffee and a subtle floral breeze all over. Smoky, gloomy, dry, subtly sweet yet subtly musky at the same time, really elegant and sophisticatedly modern, with a decent leather accord – sharp and restrained, but well executed, and with a compelling tanning richness showing class and substance. Effectively, despite being a designer, it smells more like a good example of a niche leather-woody scent. Frankly I don't smell much civet in here, and overall much animalic stuff at all; rather than civet, just a (sheer) synthetic reconstruction of this note, which creates a light feel of "animalicness" that however does not even compare to real animalic notes that can be largely found is several vintage chypres and fougères – to which, by the way, Leather Oud seems taking part of its inspiration from (while sniffing this one I though of Ferré, Krizia, Balenciaga...). Nothing amazing, but good - insanely priced good.

7,5-8/10

Dune pour Homme by Christian Dior (1997)

Nose: Olivier Cresp, Jean-Pierre Béthouart

Dune pour Homme is for me among the most enigmatic and elusive mainstream fragrances ever made, for how it elaborates a generic “designer” theme in a fascinating way. It should be supposed to be a versatile, clean and “easy” exotic fig-green scent with a soapy-musky base, and it partially is so indeed; actually the smell itself is really simple, totally good and totally wearable. A gentle, graceful, mannered and slightly creamy fig-musk-green scent. But to me, and I admit this may be a totally personal perception, it has something else which makes it completely unique and, well, kind of creepy at the same time. That “creepy” feature is connected to its signature sort of warm, blurred and watery texture, which is due to the use of hedione and musk (ketones, I guess); it feels slightly humid, lactescent and “grey” too, and for some odd reasons it makes me think of some old, faded 8 mm homemade videotape shot in a cloudy, muggy August afternoon lost in the mid-1990s. The “analogic filter” role played by the film grain corresponds to hedione here, which is I think the key of Dune’s magic – a sort of fruity-watery-grey note which gives Dune this sort of damp, plastic, sultry feel.

This together with some more ordinary, decent-quality and undoubtedly “summery” nuances like green notes and fig leaves, produce a really fascinating “summer feel”, but where “summer” means “a summer of your childhood lost in your imagination”. Nothing crisp and realistic, on the contrary a blurry, cozy, faded souvenir. It’s like if the use of hedione and musk here gives the blend a sort of nostalgic and almost hallucinating feel which makes you plunge into your own memories. Grey, sort of humid and sweltering, at the same time “faded” and quiet. Out of all the dozens of similarly synthetic scents I’ve tried and owned, this is the only one which triggers that path of associations, showing how creatively one can make good use of synthetic aromachemicals (assuming there was an intention to be creative, otherwise I guess it’s just bare luck). Anyway, aside from all of that which is maybe just a subjective frenzy of mine, Dune pour Homme is surely a good, clean and cozy greenish-exotic all-rounder with a really respectable quality and a perfect balance of distinction and “safeness”. Nothing groundbreaking and a bit short-lived (as you can expect with these notes) but inexpensively solid.

7,5/10