A very good friend told me that New Look 1947 smells the way I look. Something like that is lovely to hear, (Well, I wouldn’t want to be compared to Musc Kublai Khan, but an exclusive Dior? That is a compliment I gladly accept), and also very interesting. I always want to know how others perceive me and getting scented feedback is especially gratifying.
The only problem was – I didn’t particularly care for New Look 1947 at first.
But like in life, going through an awkward stage with oneself is fairly common (Hello, puberty!), but the older you get, the more mature (and wrinkled) you become, the more you accept yourself, the more you learn to live with yourself, take yourself the way you are, change what you can and accept what you can’t, and hopefully love yourself.
The same goes for perfume apparently…
New Look 1947 was created by Francois Démachy and includes notes of peony, ylang-ylang, pink pepper, jasmine sambac, rose, tuberose, iris, benzoin, and vanilla.
This perfume is supposed to be a tuberose scent. And that might well be, but I sure don’t smell it. New Look 1947 for me is all about cream, powder, soap, a hazy veil of indistinct feminine smells, soft, pastel colored and see-through. There is a moment that makes me think “Ah, Tuberose!”, when in the beginning a soft mentholated whiff comes through the aldehydic sparkle, but that goes away soon and hides the presence of tuberose again underneath the many gauzy layers of fragrant tulle that is New Look 1947.
To me New Look 1947 is extremely feminine, all the associations with grooming products from face cream to lipstick, the tactile sensations of fabric, the low-key sparkle that stays through the first two thirds of the development of this perfume, say Woman, with a capital W, to me.
I always assumed I disliked aldehydes, but in fact I only dislike aldehydic florals. (Sorry, Chanel N°5 and Guerlain Vega, both of you are out for now.) When aldehydes come paired with woods (Le Labo Aldehyde 44), with gourmand notes (Parfumerie Generale Tonkamande) or spices (Sonoma Scent Studio Champagne de Bois), I really enjoy them. In New Look 1947, aldehydes sparkle on a base of powder and lift the entire perfume, shoot gas bubbles into the potentially dense composition and making it rise into the air.
Like a slowly revolving cloud of pale pastel powder, New Look 1947 hovers around me, at once obscuring and enhancing me, shielding and marking me.
Photo Credit: Kristian Schuller
I might know that synthesis of extremes, expressed in indistinct tones, not only from this perfume. My friend knows me well.
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What a lovely compliment. I would take from that that you look beautiful, feminine, classy and well-groomed – it doesn’t get better than that!
I’ve only tried New Look 1947 once but I remember being pleasantly surprised after reading some not so enthusiastic reviews. I doubt it’s really me but I look forward to trying it again with you in mind 🙂
P.S. That’s an amazing photograph!
Oh, yes it is! I love it! Funnily this was taken during a past season of Germany’s Next Topmodel. 🙂
Oh please let me know, what you think! It took me some time to get it, but now I love it so!
I will, and now I won’t be so intimidated about the tuberose knowing that you love it.
There is almost no discernible tuberose-as-we-know-it, in there for me. So really no reason to be afraid. 🙂
That indeed is a very lovely compliment!
I want to try this one, I love your description; “In New Look 1947, aldehydes sparkle on a base of powder and lift the entire perfume, shoot gas bubbles into the potentially dense composition and making it rise into the air.” Sublime!!
Also, that Kristian Schuller image is gorgeous.
The photograph is so gorgeous, I adore it! And it illustrates this perfume perfectly.
This is a beautiful review of a beautiful perfume. New Look really surprised me when I first tested it, because I thought that it wasn’t going to be for me at all (I too expected tuberose). Instead, I found something astoundingly beautiful: it speaks quietly, and makes me want to get very close to hear every word. The DH really likes it too, both on himself, and on me.
Someday I would love to own a bottle of each and every one of the new Dior collection scents!
I agree with Tara, that is a stunning image! I can hardly believe that it came out of a Top Model shoot 😉
It speaks quietly – so true. Those Dior bittles would look so beautiful in your collection, one day… 🙂 I love that photograph, I am contemplating to hang a big print in my office.
I agree with Tara, a lovely compliment. The word I thought of when I tested New Look (also only once in store) was “refined.” The rosy pink shades in that photograph seem perfect for it.
“Refined” fits the perfume so well.
I am a big fan of New Look, and am eking out my 4ml decant, procured via MUA. I would say that it does indeed smell as you look – with your *bonny*, serene, fresh-faced porcelain beauty. : – ) Porcelain evokes in turn the pot of face cream that gives you your flawless complexion.
Bizarrely, I always think there are lilies in this one when there aren’t at all. Maybe this is because I love so many feminine lily scents that I automatically assume lilies to be present in everything I really like…
Thank you for your flattering words, V (apart from bonny that is, we know what THAT really means 😉 )
I admire your restraint in using New Look 1947, I spray myself lavishly, I just can’t use only a little, when I wear it, so I’m going through my 10ml decant at an alarming pace that begs for some *fretting in asterisks* actually.
Interesting that you smell lily, maybe the slight soapiness lets you think in that direction.
A perfume version of yourself- fun! I hope to find my own answer to that one day. Lovely review, Birgit!
If you do, let us know! 🙂
I believe you know two possible candidates for that spot, right? (Hint: Guerlain and Dior) 😉
You have great friends, B!
I’d like to write that after reading your review I’m dying to try this perfume but I can’t: I wanted to try it long before you (as always) very nice review. But it definitely adds some pressure. When my self-imposed maratorium on buying samples is over…
Sorry to put pressure on you, Undina! I wish I had some to send you, but I only have a few mls myself. 😦
Enjoy all the great fragrances you have in the meantime, but I know this is easier said than done.
Hmmm … well put me down as one of the skeptics. I had trouble making sense of NL47, indeed had trouble smelling it at all. (I did not get any tuberose, as far as I can recall.) Perhaps applying lavishly is the key, but I was happy to pass my sample on. I think your remark about it being a ‘hazy veil of indistinct feminine smells’ is very fitting. I can see why that can be very alluring – I admire restraint in perfume and in other art forms – but in the end I found NL47 just lacked character.
I am certainly glad it has found its admirers and hope it does well for Dior. I want the house to keep producing good fragrances, even if they are not for me.
Wearing Niki de Saint Phalle today. That’s more like it.
That is why it is good that there is a lot of choice. 🙂
And I agree with you that is is great that Dior is producing good perfumes, even if not each and everyone is wearable or desirable for all. At least they are not totally going in the direction of safety and mainstream.
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New Look is on my wrist today and so far I really like what I see. I completely agree with this statement of yours: New Look 1947 for me is all about cream, powder, soap, a hazy veil of indistinct feminine smells, soft, pastel colored and see-through. The iris-rose-vanilla blend reminds me a lot of expensive cosmetics… I wonder if this is what Creme de la Mer smells like.
I happen to know what Creme de la Mer smells like, and I bet so do you, if you ever smelled the original Nivea cream in the blue tin, you are pretty close. New Look is not so far off, but thankfully it is a lot more complex and nuanced. I adore it! 🙂
Today I went perfume sniffing at Printemps Beaute in Paris and I discovered the newest Dior exclusive: Grand Bal. A wonderful jasmine composition: crisp and radiant, it reminded me of a bright summer morning.
Oh, thank you for letting me know! I look very much forward to smell it in London next week. Do you think it is similar to Love and Tears at all?
I am truly sorry, but I cannot answer that question. I am not a by Killian expert.
No expertise necessary. 🙂
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