Dolce Vita Eau de Toilette 100ml

Peach is the first thing you meet in Dior Dolce Vita Eau de Toilette 100ml and very nearly the last, which tells you most of what you need to know about how this one is built.

The fruit is handled softly. It is not the tart, green edged peach that modern perfumery tends to reach for but the heavy, late summer version, round and slightly dusty on the surface. Rose joins it almost immediately and gives the whole thing some backbone, bringing a powdery, old fashioned elegance that keeps the fruit from reading as juvenile. Vanilla finishes it, smooth rather than sugary, more of a warm cushion than a flavour. Three materials, and they are blended closely enough that after an hour you stop picking them apart and simply smell a single warm thing.

Composed by Pierre Bourdon and dated 1995 in our records, it belongs to a period when Dior was making soft, comfortable fragrances for women rather than loud ones, and it has aged well because it was never chasing a trend. The eau de toilette strength keeps it close and wearable; this is a scent for the person sitting next to you rather than for the far side of a restaurant. Being heavy handed with it will not make it louder, only longer, so there is no real advantage in overdoing the application.

Wear it in autumn and winter, in the evening or on a slow weekend. It asks nothing of you and gives back something quietly comforting.

The house behind it is the perfume and cosmetics side of Dior, today part of the LVMH group. Christian Dior launched his couture house with a collection in February 1947 and had perfume in the plan from the outset, considering himself a couturier and a perfumer at once.