François Demachy is Dior’s official perfumer-creator, but what does that mean? Evidently, Demachy is faced with sourcing the purest of scents from all over the planet, from Dior’s home country of France, to the jasmine fields in Southern India.
In the first episode of #thequestforessences, Demachy travels to a family-run business in Grasse, France where the cherished may rose is grown.
“The rose is the queen of flowers, as it has always been viewed in high favour,”
Demachy says in his native French tongue, as he wanders through the fields where the may rose is grown.
The Southern French flower is actually a hybrid plant, and is used in every one of Dior’s official parfums. The plantation Dior visits in the Quest series is heralded as a truly authentic source for a vital flower to the company’s success in scent.
The production of may rose, from harvest to conversion, requires 300,000 flowers are in order to produce 1kg of pure absolute scent.
In episodes two and three, Demachy travels to Calabria in Italy for bergamot, a fruit grown uniquely within the region, and Southern India to source jasmine, known in the region to be the “flower of the Gods.”
It’s evident the emphasis Dior puts on capturing the atmosphere of the source; the series reveals the people directly involved behind the scenes, the factories where they process the harvest, the traditional clothing they wear while doing so, and the natural landscapes of the iconic destinations where each ingredient is found.
Where high-end fashion videos traditionally feature top models and A-list celebrities as part of a high budget production, Dior is deconstructing the precious process required to achieve the illustrious scents such as ‘J’adore’ and ‘Miss Dior’, retail fixtures that have found unprecedented success in department stores across the world. Demachy states,
“Creating a fragrance is like cooking, and cooking is much easier with quality ingredients. The same goes for perfumery,”