This month (August 2024), an exclusive Dior ‘Amphora’ perfume bottle arrived in Harrods. This new edition has been made to celebrate 175 years of the house’s special friendship with the storied London department store. ‘The Harrods Amphora’ (of which only 47 have been made, costing £4,300 each) holds ‘Miss Dior Originale’, an eau de toilette by the house’s perfume director Francis Kurkdjian, to be as close as possible to the original 1947 ‘Miss Dior’ fragrance.
‘Miss Dior’ – and the Dior ‘Amphora’ bottle – was the first ever perfume and piece of design for the maison’s beauty range. Its launch came alongside Christian Dior’s inaugural collection for spring and summer, heralding the ‘New Look’ (a term coined by then editor-in-chief of Harpers Baazar Carmel Snow). For the couturier, perfume was integral to the world of the free-spirited Dior woman, who was set to revolutionise the dress codes of post-war Europe. ‘A woman’s perfume tells more about her than her handwriting,’ he once said.
