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And so Christian Dior proceeded with yet another Poison in the illustrious line, this time named Midnight Poison.
Among perfume circles the fragrances following the original Poison are usually snubbed. Conceived by nose Edouard Flechier in 1985, encased in a flacon the colour of bruise and with a name to entice you to bite the ordoriferous yet faulty apple in the enchanted forest, the original Poison acted as a hand grenade for the nostrils of unsuspecting passerbys, who were too often anaesthetized by the penetrating aroma of this mysky, fruity and oriental concoction. A great thing, despite appearences and the only person I met who wore it well was my dear mother. Probably because she only dabbed two drops behind each ear.
The following versions, Tendre Poison from the early 90s, a greener floral highlightining freesia, and the quite recent Pure Poison with its synthetic orange blossom opening on a bed of musk are fairly tame in comparison. Hypnotic Poison by nose Annick Menardo from 1998, a tripy almondy gourmand, has -for the amove mentioned reasons- its own fans and escapes criticism relatively unscathed.
However this new Midnight Poison has the most gorgeous commercial imaginable and Perfume Shrine considers it its duty to bring those things to you.
So here it is for your delectation:
Directed by Wong Kar-Wai and featuring the wonderful actress Eva Green (Vesper in Casino Royal but also famous due to Bertolucci's film The Dreamers and Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven), it is stylistically superb, if a little gothic-looking. To which Perfume Shrine is not averse to, it might be noted. Of course the hanging from the chandelier puts a playful spin on this, so I guess it is not as gothic as it could be; let's say Tim Burton on a Mars Attacks budget.
References to the Cinderella fairy tale are evident in the depiction of a gigantic Dior clock that is about to chime midnight, the heroine running to the great "palace" to be in time, as well as the shot of the black ankle lace-up boots that adorn Eva's dainty feet. And as the countdown to 12 begins, we see Eva reveal a different self; a self that is brought about by wearing the new Dior fragrance, we infer, as drops of rain -or is it moondrops bursting?- are falling over her porcelain skin and raven black hair...
The song is Space Dementia by Muse, which I am taking the chance to remind you was the group whose song was chosen for the Insolence by Guerlain commercial featuring Hillary Swank. For some reason the line "You make me sick" indeed has a weird overtone in relation to perfume, but of course the whole concept of Poison was to assert itself agressively to the one smelling it, alluding to a dangerous sexuality that is confident in its choices.
As to the latter I divert you to this perfume review by Cognoscented.
Clip by Youtube uploaded by museabusedotcom, pics courtesy of Dior campaign
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