To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
easy75 – :
It’s not easy to get your hands on vintage Diorama, so how can you decide if it is worth the effort and expense? Perhaps some comparisons will help. The resemblance between vintage Femme and vintage Diorama is evident, relying on their shared, lovely dried spiced peach notes. Comparing vintage, pre-reformulation Femme PDT to vintage Diorama parfum, Femme is definitely sweeter and fruitier, with Diorama feeling greener with a drop of galbanum on the top. Over time, their animalic profiles also seem different. Femme reveals the slightly sharpish tang of civet beneath the fruit, while Diorama has velvety musks, similar to those in vintage Miss Dior. Diorama’s greater spiciness is also notable, with noticeable cinnamon and cardamom, making it more aromatic than Femme. In the end, Diorama might be more complex than Femme, making Femme seem a wee bit overripe and blowsy in its overt fruitiness, but, really, both are lovely.
There is no cumin to be found in either vintage Diorama or vintage Femme, but oddly enough, the reformulated Les Creations Diorama does feature cumin (as does the reformulated Femme). In fact, there is a huge photo of cumin seeds on the Dior webpage to celebrate this specific aspect of Les Creations Diorama. I cannot begin to explain why perfumers think smooth, peachy, buttery chypres such as Diorama and Femme should be reformulated by adding, of all things, cumin. (And I say this even though I like cumin as a perfume note, but it is a controversial and somewhat difficult note, very different in intention from the original nature of these perfumes.)
Also strange to tell, the newer Les Creations Diorama seems to remind many people of Diorella, not vintage Diorama. I have not tried this version, but Turin and Sanchez affirm:
“The present day Diorama bears no relation whatsoever to the stupendous 1949 original, a sunny orange-peel version of Mitsouko, and is instead related to Diorella and Parfum de Therese, only less good.” I adore vintage Diorella, and I can’t begin to imagine how Diorama could morph into Diorella.
So how about vintage Diorama’s relationship to Mitsouko, the grandmother of all peachy spicy chypres? Again, the similarity is there. Tested side-by-side in the vintage parfum formulations, Mitsouko has much more incense, patchouli, and amber than Diorama and feels more oriental, making Diorama feel fresher and more chypre-like in contrast. I have to confess that you probably don’t need to hunt down vintage Diorama, if you are happy wearing your vintage Mitsouko. Matched against the great Grand Dame of Fruity Chypres, Diorama can feel a little bit like a beautiful Mitsouko Lite (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) but when it comes to vintage Dior perfumes, resistence is futile for me.
Jeopollumutle – :
The elusive Diorama. (1948)
(vintage edt)
I purchased an estate from a perfumista. Her grandson asked me if Id also like her travel atomizers. I diddnt want to seem impolite, so I accepted. Most were half full with only initials on them to indicate the scents. I found one that was simply labeled…”Dior”
I gently opened the canister screw top and swiped some contents on the back of my hand. Rich fruits opened with melon, peach and plum. A leathery nuance with gardenia leading the way…my eyes widened…this was Diorama I had been researching for years.
I have the current Diorama edt by Dior, and Parfum de Therese, and vintage Femme parfum. The current Diorama plays harder on the fresh bright opening notes and jasmine..It echos more along the lines of an edt version of Malle’s Parfum de Therese. Therese runs more melon chypre. Diorama is ripe plum (vintage prunol base by de laire is definately in here like in vintage Femme) Diorama is more related to vintage Femme parfum if I had to say where it lies in the spectrum.
The caraway and spices enter very subtly more in the back of the composition. It reads much more warm musky and elegant. Cloves and cinnamon begin to tickle the back of my throat. The velvety plummy richness is still there, while the heart opens in two sections. First the gardenia floral, then the spicy phase. The castorum and civet begin to assert their presence adding to the harmony..perhaps the nitromusks were also added for a warm feel. The overall impression is incredibly balanced and smooth..where the references to sexy skin come into play.
When the drydown begins another floral emerges with the musks. Smooth creamy woods and violet soften Diorama. This fragrance undulates, unfurls like a fine satin gown over a curvy glamorous movie star of another age.
I leave you with one final thought on Diorama.. Jean Claude Ellena, talking about Diorama :
“No perfume has ever had more complex form and formula, more feminine contours, more sensual, more carnal. It seduces us with its spicy notes: pepper, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, the scent of skin. It is disturbing with its animalic notes: castoreum, civet, musk. All the accords and themes to follow are contained in this perfume: the wood and the violet, the plum and the peach, the jasmine and the spices.”
While I would have to agree that Dioramas formula is seamless and complex, we would see a different complex configuration of the grand floral/fruit/spicy/leather/musk chypre in Guy Robert’s entry with Lasso in 1956.
Jean Desprez Sheherazade (1938/1983) Van Cleef and Arpels Gem (1987) JCE’s entry with his complex Rumba Extrait for Balenciaga (1989) Parfum de Therese (2000) and later Roja Dove Diaghilev are all members of the genre. However, Diorama’s smooth finesse seems to be the queen of the genre.
Edit: The extrait is divine.Different from edt.
aamir – :
i tried it once at an airport and i’ve been obsessing about it ever since! since all the bottles look the same (for this collection) and i didn’t remember the name so it took me a lot of time sampling dioressence, diorissimo – becasuse they’re more popular and the SA keep showing those to me – before i chanced upon Diorama. oh what an absolutely stunning fragrance it is!! smells like deliciously youthful skin. extremely sensuous, like dirty sex but sweeter. i keep smelling my wrists all day. at first it’s like cumin – which is a spice i use a lot in cooking so i was a bit disappointed but then the skin smell come out. and then it becomes erotically dirty and sweet, like you want to sink your teeth into flesh. and yet it smells elegant, very feminine, strongly feminine, not for a dainty girl but a confident woman. a must try for any chypre lover.
Esaul777 – :
I can give a 100 ml Dolce Vita or Dioressence for another 100 ml of Diorama, anyone? Please only EU. Private message. Thank You. Useless to say I love this one to bits so I would like to exchange with what I already have too much. Thank You
Merqw199Unlogrere – :
Diorama, a fabulous fragrance, by the parfumeur who gave us Rochas Femme, and Elizabeth Arden On Dit. They are all very similar, but Diorama had the edge for me. This perfume was not for everyone, as it must not wear you. I had my bag snatched in Amsterdam station, and was wearing Diorama, never wore it again, and not long after, both it and later Diorling were discontinued, but by then i was a Chanel “”19″” and Courreges Empreinte girl!
Love to all.
pcvaka – :
I smel the vintag diorama this frag is mix between diorssimo+diorella that’s i sempl
senokos – :
This is a review for the vintage parfum. This is a muskier version of Femme by Rochas. Perhaps too musky for some people but not for me. This is like a beautiful woman who is a shape shifter and can turn into animal. I am an animal. This scent starts off with the fruitiness that I like in openings less citrus and more peach and plum. Sweet, soft, but ripe and delicious. It’s seductive and fragrant like fruit bowls on a table in a garden with white flowers all about. The gardenia, jasmine tuberose and violet are all detectable. This is a very floral perfume. However the day turns into night and it becomes an evening cologne with animalic scents of beaver and civet. Yes my purchase is very old and comes with that great bottle and even though it has turned a bit it still smells like something from out of this world, and out of my own world. It smells very expensive very elegant. A tad Oriental and spicy, and definitely mature and womanly but so sexy. I find that the muskiness makes it warm and so this is the Dior frag I will wear as the winter enters it’s final phase before I can start wearing florals again.
Vwntocluberdons – :
This is for the vintage pure parfum I got.. anything for science!
This opens with a strong note of bergamot and evolves into dirty civet, plum and strong powdery violet and oakmoss – most certainly not a white floral as most of us know it – yet. A warming, pleasant drydown of tuberose and civet, together with the oakmoss that dominates this scent through the whole experience. Intoxicating, animalic, heady. This reminds me slightly of Cartier Panthere and the beautiful drydown of vintage Giorgio Beverly Hills. In the end, this is a creamy tuberose with civet. Becomes richer after time and is very complex, a true pleasure for the senses. Anyone would appreciate this one way or another, since it’s so well blended. It’s an honor to own it. The sillage is greater than anything.
The modern Diorama (EDT) is a warm beautiful white floral with soft spices, its scent has nothing in common with the vintage.
v1tS – :
I have a vintage sample of Diorama that has perhaps lost some of its top notes, but I forgive it. I think it’s the heart and base notes that make this perfume the lady it is.
As has often been noted, it’s a flower and animal chypre, but what does that tell you if you’ve never smelled it? Does it tell you, for instance, that I was drinking unsweetened chai as I first smelled Diorama this morning, and that after attending to my wrist for a few minutes I took a sip of my drink and it tasted sweet? Does it tell you that while the perfume lasts, the sillage is stupendous, head-turning? Would you know that it smells like a fur stole and new leather gloves worn by a woman who would simply laugh at you if you told her “fur is murder”?
I have no objection to the use of synthetics in perfumes. I know that they preserve natural resources,allow for a constancy that might otherwise be impossible, give us unprecedented notes etc…but what I cannot endure is ingredients that smell chemical. I loathe the biting, harsh, sinus-scouring edges so common to cheap perfumes, and now increasingly found in not-cheap perfumes.
Diorama stands with you licking her chops at the prospect of trashing those little science projects. She’s a gorgeous chimera, a force of nature.
f60968 – :
I find it tiresome when people complain about Luca Turin and The Guide. The complaints seem full of straw men to me: who are the people in danger of slavishly following The Guide and not trusting their own tastes? And so what if they did, and they never learned to appreciate Creed? This does not make my list of things to get churlish about. But then my parents started me on Pauline Kael as a young child, and now I am grateful to them.
It is true that sometimes Luca Turin seems jaded, like the only thing that will grab his attention these days is the latest from some experimental house with a witty new iceberg lettuce and shorted-out motherboard accord. For me, this just adds to the fun. However I do wonder if he steered us a bit wrong on this and Parfum de Therese. I was lucky enough to find a half a vintage bottle of this in a thrift store. The top notes were messed up, but as soon as I put it on, I perceived the relationship between Diorella, PDT and this, and felt very pleased with myself. I am not advanced enough to understand why this supposedly sucks and PDT is not a masterpiece. I actually wear this once in a while now, just because I want to, not as an experiment. And my boyfriend likes it too, he says he wishes they still made things more like this. So there.
Pycalo4ka – :
In my experience, Vintage Diorama, which I own in EDT and parfum, is a slightly sweeter version of vintage Miss Dior. In other words, it’s wonderful with its Miss Dior structure and hints of the plummy Femme Rochas.
However, the reformulated version is more like a salty/ citrus-y combination of vintage Diorella and Frederic Malle’s Parfum de Theresse where the original Diorama scent only shows its beautiful self in the far dry down, just as it starts to fade out.
I have to say that I really like this reformulated Diorama for the scent that it is, but it’s not really Diorama as it was originally intended. If you want to experience something closer to what the original Diorama was, try Molinard’s Chypre de Orient for which I’ve also written a review.
vadyanus – :
What sophistication, spicy, woody, elegant. I utterly adored it and felt like a forties model when I wore it, which is a style that suits me down to the ground. I have been trying to get hold of it for a while now. Unfortunately my ex-husband hated it, claiming it smelled like fly spray. That only made me fonder of it!
This is really an unusual perfume, very individual, and definitely everyone’s perfume, but for those whom it suits, it is just perfect. Tres Dior!!
DarhanAltai – :
I got a bottle of vintage cologne for a great price on ebay and it was 2/3 full by the picture. When it got to me, the package was in USPS plastic baggy, uh oh. There remained about 1/3 in the bottle, the lid was loose. Grrr…. Anyway, the package and the room I opened it in smelled FANTASTIC. Slightly aftershave-ish, I believe that would be the vetiver. But man, what an addictive scent.
I got a big bottle of the new Diorama edt again on ebay, it was a tester and I have no reason to doubt the authenticity. What a disappointment. This one is primarily jasmine on me. There is just a hint of the vetiver and other ingredients, barely, on drydown. Not even close. I don’t even mind that it only lasts about 2 hours. Now I have no idea how to rate this scent!
yyo489JeomiWogkig – :
THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE REWORKED DIORAMA
That Roudnitska is a genius we already know. That you can buy his creations blindly is another truth. Obviously if you like his style which is elegant, refined, never too claimed, understated.
This scents is a powerful mixture of every nuance can be found in a perfume: there are flowers, citrus notes, powder, fruits, leather. All so well balanced that one may wonder how this could be possible by a human. I really wonder if Monsieur Roudnitska was only human.
Wearing Diorama you have the impression of wearing Diorella (the citrus opening notes), Dior Dior (the exploding of flowers and honeysuckle coming from behind), Diorling (the powder and leather notes). The fruits is the new note, the innovation in this wonderful scent from the range of the other Dior’s masterpieces I have listed here. Among the whole of Dior’s range this is certainly the best creation in my opinion, it sums up what Dior used to be, what elegance was, what a classy woman anchored to the past but with her eyes to the future should wear. Incredible scent, just in between past and future, perfect if you love the vintage feel and the modern trend. Unbelievable.