The rose crowning the new Dior flacon will not wilt. It is cut from lambskin, petal laid over petal, its single leaf pressed with the house cannage.
Dior has released a new edition in Les Récoltes Majeures, the high-perfumery line overseen by Francis Kurkdjian, the house perfume creation director. The scent reaches for one thing, the smell of a rose in the moment it leaves the stem. Kurkdjian built it around the Centifolia grown in Grasse, working older extraction methods against newer ones to hold the flower's first hour.
What sits on top of the bottle is a separate craft. The stopper carries a rose worked entirely in leather, made by the French artist Marie Barthès. The petals are lambskin, sourced in partnership with Christian Dior Couture, cut and shaped and stacked until the flower reads as freshly opened.
The petals
Barthès grades the colour the way a real rose does. The outer petals hold a deeper mauve, the inner ones fade toward powder, and the head climbs from wine to blush as it reaches the centre. A gilded bead sits where the stamen would be. None of the shading is printed; it lives in the leather.
The house signatures stay quiet and present. One leaf is embossed with the cannage lattice, the quilting Dior usually keeps on its bags, and finished with the Christian Dior signature in gold. Small metallic details catch at the join between flower and flacon.
A flower kept at its first hour, cut in a material built to last decades.
The Splendid EditThe flacon
The bottle underneath is the house amphora, fluted amber glass on a faceted foot, collared by a row of gold beads. A small Dior charm hangs at the neck. The leather rose takes the place of the usual cap, so the perfume wears the flower.
Courtesy of Dior — Les Récoltes Majeures, Paris
Grasse supplies the scent; Paris supplies the leaf. The lambskin passes through the same couture hands that build the season's bags, which is why it is routed through Christian Dior Couture rather than a fragrance workshop. Leather goods and perfume rarely share a bench. Here they share an object.
The edition
The piece is a limited edition, made to be kept once the bottle runs dry. That is the wager. The fragrance is the reason to buy it; the rose is the reason to hold on to it after.
Dior has spent decades turning the rose into scent. This time it turned the rose into a thing you can pick up, and left the smell inside.
The Splendid Edit on Dior's Les Récoltes Majeures leather rose edition, made with Christian Dior Couture, Paris. Details from Dior and LVMH.
Photography courtesy of Dior — Les Récoltes Majeures, Paris