These two green elements are present in green leaves and green fruit (like kiwi and bananas)—they provide a spring, burgeoning, sappy, fresh-cut-grass kind of smell. Roudnitska used them to the biggest advantage in this perfume, providing a completely new innovation for a perfume that was already quite innovative because it was very minimalistic in conception. But then the coronation of this beautiful floral harmony was to put this completely new green, very ethereal and powerful dominance to make the fragrance completely new.
— Perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux on Edmond Roudnitska's Diorissimo. Read more in The 12 Favorite Fragrances of Famed Perfumers at Harper's Bazaar.
Interesting!
Yes…whole article is good too.
Diorissimo was my first ‘proper’ perfume. My late aunt, who had emigrated from Aberdeen, Scotland to upstate New York in the early 60s was visiting her parents/my grandparents (in Aberdeen) in the mid 70s & I happened to be visiting at the same time. Aunt Norma gave me the classic bottle with about an inch of perfume remaining & that was it, I was hooked! I visited Aunt Norma & Uncle Charlie (also sadly missed) in 1984, when my favourite perfume at that time was the then one & only Oscar de la Renta – funnily enough, my aunt was currently wearing it too – great minds think alike! Whenever I was being stubbornly independent (which was often, apparently starting at a very young age) my father (her brother) & grandparents would say “you’re just like your Aunt Norma!”, which I always took as a compliment but I’m not sure they always meant it that way! Treasured memories.
Lovely story!
Diorissimo was one of my earliest “proper perfume” purchases, as you say, when my sister and I were rooming together as undergrads in college in the 70’s, and had made the trek to the big city with the big department stores. She bought Arpege, and I bought Diorissimo, and we were both very happy with our purchases for quite a while after we got back to school.
One summer day not long after I had started working at the hospital in Ann Arbor, in 2004, I suppose, I was walking across a parking lot, and hit the scent trail of something wonderful. A very little old lady in a very classic Chanel style pale blue suit was making her way toward the hospital, and I ran after her and asking her what she was wearing. She looked at me with surprise and said, ‘Diorissimo!” as if I should have known, and I agreed with her, “Of course, I should have known!” She liked that, and said, “This is the extrait, quite old, very close to the original, I would think.” I said, “Yes, I don’t think they make it like that anymore, do they?” and she smiled happily and we talked perfume for a few minutes. Diorissimo!
Nice 🙂