BABY BLISS: “When I joined Dior in October 2022, one of the projects I had in mind was revisiting Baby Dior,” Francis Kurkdjian, Dior’s perfume creation director, told WWD. “Christian Dior evoked his childhood many times as a very happy and joyful period of his life. The scent and the baby care line were discontinued, and I was eager to bring it back to life as a tribute.”
He met with Cordelia de Castellane, Baby Dior’s artistic director, who had the same desire.
“We immediately discussed about working together to build back this universe,” Kurkdjian said. “Baby Dior was born that day.”
Their dream became reality with a new scent, called Bonne Étoile, which launches with a bath line for babies starting Wednesday. The house calls the fragrance an “eau de senteur.” It contains notes of pear, eglantine and musk. There is no alcohol and 98 percent of the scent’s ingredients stem from natural origins.
Rounding out the line are bath products: La Mousse Très Fondante cleansing foam, Le Lait Très Tendre body lotion and L’Eau Très Fraîche liquid cleanser, each scented with Bonne Étoile and including Anjou mallow extract, a moisturizing ingredient grown in the Dior Gardens.
They come in a bottle covered with Dior’s signature toile de Jouy, in pastel colors, which show an imaginary garden in Granville — Dior’s childhood home in Normandy, France.
Product prices range from 85 euros for the 350-ml. body lotion to 255 euros for the 100-ml. scent.
Dior the designer evoked Granville in some early collections and clothes that he made for friends’ children.
Baby Dior, a clothing line of clothing and objects for children, was launched in 1967, then soon thereafter, in 1970, an eponymous eau de cologne was introduced. That was a lighter iteration of Edmond Roudnitska’s Eau Fraîche, and came in a set with shampoo, an oil and two talcum powders.
“In a poetic encounter between children’s fashion and fragrance, Baby Dior renews the challenge set by Christian Dior, to create the tender scent of childhood magic,” Dior said in a statement.
The Bonne Étoile collection also includes babywear and gift sets featuring the toile de Jouy pattern created by Castellane. The Mon Premier Bain set, for instance, holds a bottle of the cleansing foam as well as a terry hooded bath towel.
The products will launch at select Baby Dior and Parfums Christian Dior boutiques, as well as dior.com in Europe, the U.S. and Middle East, starting Wednesday.
Beginning in January, they will be available worldwide, save for China, which will begin selling the products in June 2024.
