Dior Eden-Roc Review – Francois Demachy; 2021

If you can’t afford a hotel room at €1,500 per night, the next best thing is this perfume. Perhaps that’s the message Dior would like to convey with the release of Eden-Roc, the latest addition to the exclusive Collection Privee (aka the Maison Christian Dior range). The fragrance was featured in a recent (rather lively) episode of Love At First Scent. Here’s a link: Dior Eden-Roc review.

Francois Demachy has given us a far more curious piece of work than we might have expected with this tribute to Cap D’Antibes’ jewel. On the surface, it’s all breezy lightness and clinking cocktail glasses: an undemanding affair sold on the appeal of nonchalance. But this particular marketing angle might make it all too easy to dismiss a composition deserving of deeper scrutiny.

Eden-Roc is worth checking out not just because of what it is, but because of what it isn’t. It avoids citrus cliches in its top section. It doesn’t play the Provencal lavender card (at least not overtly). It doesn’t use a Calone foghorn to spell ‘marine’. It doesn’t make its central jasmine note immediately and crudely recognisable. And it doesn’t rely on an excessive dose of musks in the base. However, it does employ citruses, herbs, marine ingredients, jasmine and musks to put together a more abstract sculpture than we’ve had from Demachy for a while: an idea of the atmosphere at the Hotel Du Cap, rather than a literal representation of it. Perhaps it leans a bit too heavily on the sweeter side of its floral elements, but all in all, it manages its balancing act fairly well.

It’s also notable that as it approaches its drydown it displays traces of – shock horror – the same oyster-seaweed substances that have made Etat Libre D’Orange Secretions Magnifiques infamous for years. Top marks to Demachy for using the stuff (or something similar) to add an element of seafaring surprise to this creation. That said, it’s not fair to end this review by linking Eden-Roc to the ELDO scent. Instead, it would be far more appropriate and accurate to suggest that, with its citrusy-jasmine-herbal spine, it comes across as Demachy’s attempt to reframe Eau Sauvage. Discuss.

Persolaise

[Dior Eden-Roc review based on a sample of eau de parfum provided by the brand in 2021.]

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