He was faced with the icon and the flowers of this fragrance, which singlehandedly symbolises luxury, triumphant femininity and the pioneering soul of Dior.

It was an introduction representing a sensual renewal, which he handled with humility and audacity, determination and vision, guided by the words of Christian Dior: “Respect tradition and dare to be bold.” 

J'adore led to a special encounter between a perfumer famed for his astonishing creations of polished beauty, and an emblematic fragrance that has become a major classic.

This was the occasion for him to make his mark on it, in his singular style that has garnered success through its eminently contemporary, powerful refinement.

He chose to go to the very heart of J'adore’s floral bouquet, the essence of its incredibly complex formula. There, he imbued it with his conceptual sensitivity, taking a radical olfactory position: pruning the floral profusion, he drew a silhouette that leans towards radical minimalism, organic sensuality and an unprecedented concentration level. 

Like gold melted down to retain only its purest essence, he isolated flowers, exaggerating them, in a refinement that became its new signature.

“Christian Dior used to say that his models represented all the women in the world. Thanks to the intact magic and the power of J'adore, I dared to imagine that I, in turn, was taking possession of all the flowers in the world – with all the audacity, the extravagance and the rigour that are the signature of the Dior spirit.

I wanted to move from the aura of J'adore to that of l’Or de J'adore, and to its olfactory quintessence, free of all superfluous elements. I wanted to give the J'adore floral signature more streamlined, contemporary and universal accents. Like shining a new light on J'adore, which is an impressionist masterpiece, composed of a myriad of kaleidoscopic touches. 

Taking possession of this almost pictorial profusion required me to dive head-first into the formula, and mix up its richness to retain only the essentials: a sensual rose and a powerful jasmine.

I therefore summed up and defined this dense bouquet with the desire to find a new harmony and a new balance for its proportions.

I also added touches of rounder, smoother colour by emphasizing pinks and whites, and highlighting the solar flowers.

The formula now seems tighter. I have, in a way, exaggerated the floral contours to make their nuances more prominent and thereby define a new texture, similar to that of fluid and enveloping gold. A new sensuality, immediately appealing.

A J'adore that is rounded and attractive, like a bared shoulder.

The quintessence of J'adore is present. L’Or de J'adore returns to the essentials, celebrating the beauty of flowers carried in a smooth and solar concentrate.

L’Or de J’adore, is all its flowers.”

Francis Kurkdjian,
Perfume Creation Director

The ethereal rose-case designed by Jean-Michel Othoniel is a wonderful miniature work of art that is signed and numbered. Imbued with the full magic of the artist’s monumental sculptures, it is the perfect counterpart to Francis Kurkdjian’s composition, with the beads of its petals tracing a hyperbolic flower that is effusive and polished. But the pathway to its appearance was a long one, decorated in bronze and gold. It all began for the artist with the contemplation of a “real” rose, which he painted in watercolour. The illustration was transformed into the spatial plane when he made a first, three-dimension model. This model was then handed over to the foundry, which works using the traditional lost-wax casting technique. The beads of this absolute gem of precision, created in bronze, where hand polished one by one, before being plunged into a bath of molten gold.

Set delicately in this bronze and gold flower, the crystal amphora designed by Jean-Michel Othoniel provides an ethereal, perfectly balanced figure 8, underlining the soft harmony of the New Look created by Christian Dior. The expressive fluid gold of its lid embraces the weightless bead, then flows in waves over the crystal curves of the bottle. Surprisingly, the glass base is full and rounded, making it impossible to balance the bottle without the flower that houses it. In short, it embodies the perfect symbiosis between the precious amphora with a polished neck, and its case, sculpted like a calyx.
A white trunk designed in the image of the cases used to transport artworks, and created to the scale of this creation, protects the amphora and its flower until they arrive at their final exhibition site.

Born in 1964 in Saint-Etienne, France, Jean-Michel Othoniel has been inventing a universe with multiple contours since the late 1980s. His works can be found in the world’s best contemporary art museums, foundations and private collections.
More recently, his work has taken on an architectural dimension, engaging with gardens or historical sites through public or private commissions around the world. Favoring materials with poetic and sensitive properties, Jean-Michel Othoniel works with wax, sulfur, and glass, which has become his hallmark. The delicacy of glass and the subtlety of its colors played an important role in the artist’s vast project: to poeticize and re-enchant the world.
In 2021, on the invitation of the Petit Palais, Othoniel took over its garden and the galleries housing its permanent collections and presented an exhibition that brought the museum’s architecture into play. “Le Théorème de Narcisse” (The Theorem of Narcissus) offered visitors a journey of wonderment. Continuing this passion, Jean-Michel Othoniel showed his passion for gardens with “Treasure gardens”, at the Seoul Museum of Art and at the Imperial Palace Garden. He was officially inducted into France’s Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2021.
In 2023, Jean-Michel Othoniel will unveil a new series of six large sculptures throughout the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for an important summer exhibition.

In this beautiful project, my creative universe meets that of J'adore in a natural way. The wonder of everyday life, the contemplation of flowers and the joy of fragrance, are the many sources of inspiration that unite us and that lead me to abstract forms.

For this piece, I carefully observed the composition and the structure of a rose, a flower that I particularly like. Then I twisted the beads around the bottle in a dancing movement of life energy. I then imagined gold decorating the amphora like a precious fabric, settling on the bead like a delicate petal. The bead of the amphora is literally like a weightless rosebud. Last of all, I wanted the glass base of the bottle to be unstable, so that the bottle is always held and continually handled, like a talisman that one appropriates.

I am particularly touched by the fact that this new work is not confined to the world of museums and galleries, so that it can reach the highest number of people on a daily basis. The power of J'adore has given me the occasion to create a versatile, beautiful and significant work that is intimate and sensual, just like the fragrance.

“Gold Rose” is going to be transformed into a monumental sculpture for my big exhibition at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The piece will be created in the context of the Dior Cultural gardens, which are a series of invitations to go outside and dive into reality and nature.

The initial encounter between Francis Kurkdjian and Refik Anadol revealed a new challenge – how to embody a fragrance and make “the invisible visible”. In other words, how can one transform the floral magic of L’Or de J'adore into an artwork that is as sensorial, attractive, and addictive as its olfactory counterpart? The answer came from the perfume itself coupled with Anadol’s archive of millions of images of the world’s flowers and led to a creative explosion.
“Using the numerical composition of the formula and the enormous floral dataset my studio has been collecting for over two years, we trained our AI to dream of gold and flowers”. The composition data of L’Or de J’adore fragrance was therefore transformed by AI, giving rise to supple and beautiful virtual waves of liquid gold and flower images.
J’adore AI Data Sculpture emphasizes the idea that beauty can be born of data, with Anadol transforming the formula of the iconic perfume into a stunning new AI Data Sculpture in his signature style that is as visually striking as it is poetic. The result is an innovative and timeless artwork to be experienced through sight and scent.

Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He is the Director of Refik Anadol Studio in Los Angeles and teaching at UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts. Anadol’s work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. Anadol’s site-specific data paintings and sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, collective experiences, public art, decentralized networks, and the creative potential of AI. Anadol’s work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Art Basel, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Hammer Museum, Arken Museum, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Ars Electronica, Istanbul Modern, and ZKM | Center for Art and New Media. Anadol has received a number of awards and prizes including the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, and Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award.