“It’s so fun to have this new Jonathan Anderson look incorporated into the campaign,” Natalie Portman tells me at La Colle Noire on an exceptionally sunny day in May. Of course, she’s referring to her latest turn in the ongoing story of Miss Dior, the fragrance Christian Dior created in 1947 for his courageous little sister Catherine, just a few years before buying the chateau where we’re sipping tea to the piercing shrieks of peacocks roaming the grounds.
Yes, there are peacocks at La Colle Noire, Dior’s picturesque estate perched high in the hills above Montauroux in the South of France, as well as a serene reflecting pool, lush gardens of roses, jasmine and lavender, and even a private chapel. It’s a decidedly fairytale setting, but also one that holds innumerable clues to the codes of the French fashion house.
When we meet, Portman is heavily pregnant and glowing, clad in a blue and white print Dioriviera babydoll dress, designed by Anderson, natch. “It reminds me of Delft pottery,” she says of the frock’s pattern, nodding to the 17th century Dutch earthenware characterized by a similar color scheme. Despite her bump (or perhaps defying all limitations), she’s got heels on — Dior Bow peep-toe numbers in a chic, denim blue-hued lambskin. Admiring the bows, she notes that they almost “look ceramic, actually.”
This same uniquely astute attention to detail is ever-present in the latest reinvention of Miss Dior, a chypre scent rich in centifolia rose (some grown at La Colle Noire!) with a gourmand edge thanks to vanilla, tonka bean and milky sandalwood. The long-lasting potion is housed in a bottle topped with a ribbon that has, well, a new look. The dagger bow gets a makeover, returning to its original longer, slimmer shape, in a pattern inspired by the history of the house: the iconic Dior gray houndstooth. During his iconic 1947 show (around the same time as the introduction of Miss Dior perfume), Christian Dior debuted his “New Look,” styles that brought a return to femininity following the war. Many associate the curvaceous Bar Jacket with this collection, but also, Dior broke ground by using houndstooth in women’s fashion for the first time, transforming a fabric previously worn by Scottish shepherds for its durability into an elegant statement. What better place to reintroduce this story than on a fragrance symbolizing youth and hope?
In another first, the bow on the bottle can be personalized with four chic houndstooth expressions including silver and white tweed, two-tone denim, pink and white or black and white jacquard. And each bow is itself an objet d’art. Dior partnered with Julien Faure, a historic French maison of master ribbon weavers founded in 1864, to create the fabric. In true couture fashion, for each centimeter of ribbon, it takes over 10,000 stitches to create the houndstooth.
“This artisanship that connects everything in the house, from the clothes to the bow on the perfume bottle to the actual perfume in the bottle, everything is done by hand,” Portman says. “That feeling of hand-to-hand artisanship is so rare and valuable these days. There’s a real ode to beauty and love and romance.”
And that romance extends to the campaign, but in a whole new way. We’ve seen the star, as Miss Dior, sprint into the sea and run through fields of flowers in her quest for love. For her eighth incarnation as the spirited Miss, longtime French director Manu Cossu captures Portman in the streets of Paris, wearing a thoroughly modern pale floral moiré bow blouse and skirt designed by Jonathan Anderson, the house’s bold new creative director. The setting is surprisingly new, too. “Having the classic field of flowers, but in the middle of the Parisian streets, is kind of epic,” Portman shares. Watch the full video here!
No doubt a nod to the mettle of Catherine Dior, the short film is set to Chappel Roan belting out Good Luck, Babe, an ode to love and an anthem for self-expression. Taking agency is something the 45-year-old actress, next up in Netflix’s Good Sex, can get behind. “I think I had taken it for granted that feminism had been done by our mothers in the ‘60s and the ‘70s — and then I realized that I had been blind to all of these inequities that were in my own industry and other industries, and not having the same opportunities as men,” she admits. “I realized there was so much more to do and I’ve been lucky to get to be inspired by many women who are really doing the work every day. And I’ve been trying to be aware of it in everything I do, from the soccer team that I’ve been lucky enough to work with to the way we craft the storytelling for these kinds of campaigns,” she says. A powerful way to move forward, indeed.
Miss Dior Eau de Parfum, $185 for 100ml, dior.com (on August 6)
