EXCLUSIVE: Rihanna Is Named the Face of Dior’s J’Adore Fragrance
PARIS — Rihanna is the new face of the J’Adore blockbuster women’s fragrance from Parfums Christian Dior.
The singer, businesswoman and fashion icon in a statement described her new role as “both an honor and a mission.”
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“The scent, that I have known and loved for so long, means so much to women,” she continued. “I am especially looking forward to joining this adventure and contributing to it through my world, my story, my roots, as well as my creativity and my own femininity.”
As J’Adore’s face, Rihanna succeeds Charlize Theron, who, as previously reported in May, became jewelry and skin care ambassador at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned Dior after fronting the fragrance for 20 years.
“Since its creation in 1999, J’Adore has always been embodied by powerful, triumphant, inspiring women,” said Véronique Courtois, chief executive officer of Parfums Christian Dior. “The choice of Rihanna to be the next face of J’Adore was obvious for us. Not only is she one of the greatest and most powerful artists of all times, she is also multitalented, a successful entrepreneur, a committed humanitarian, a mother of two and a singular beauty.”
Rihanna’s music honors include nine Grammy Awards and 13 American Music Awards. She was the first female artist to have 10 songs achieve 1 billion streams on Spotify.
Rihanna launched the Clara Lionel Foundation, which supports and funds education and climate change programs around the world, as well as the Fenty fashion house and Fenty Beauty, both under LVMH.
She is an actress, too, in movies such as “Ocean’s 8,” “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” and “Battleship.”
The government of Barbados, her birthplace, appointed her official ambassador of culture and youth in 2018. She was named national heroine of Barbados in 2021.
“In one word, she is a model of female empowerment, an inspiring figure all over the world for all generations,” Courtois said. “Besides, she is a longstanding friend of the house, and she’s had an intimate bond with J’Adore since she was a little girl, which gives an extra meaning to this sincere collaboration.”
Rihanna’s link with Dior includes starring in “Secret Garden IV,” a campaign and short film shot inside Versailles, which dropped in May 2015. The following year, Rihanna and Dior collaborated on a sunglass collection.
Courtois said Dior has always been associated with icons, princesses and queens.
“Rihanna is a queen of our times, an inspiring figure of female empowerment for everything she does, what she embodies and for having realized her childhood dreams,” Courtois said. “She will bring her unique touch to J’Adore, a mix of universal desirability and edginess that will bring this unique fragrance to a new generation of women.”
The J’Adore campaign in which Rihanna appears was lensed by Steven Klein and will break on Sept. 1.
Courtois remained mum on details, but she promised “it brings together everything you would expect from a Dior story: thrill, desire, sense of spectacular and extraordinary, but also some unexpected twists.”
According to Courtois, J’Adore remains among the fragrance market leaders globally because it keeps reinventing itself with the likes of Parfum d’Eau, the first alcohol-free eau de parfum. More recently, there has been L’Or de J’Adore. It was the first major scent created for Dior by Francis Kurkdjian after he became the house’s perfume creative director in October 2021.
Over the years, J’Adore, initially created by Calice Becker, has been interpreted by various perfumers, including François Demachy.
The fragrance’s advertising has been shot by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Romain Gavras, Craig McDean and Peter Lindbergh. J’Adore’s first campaign featured Carmen Kass wading through liquid gold.
“Beyond the business results, the exhibition at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Paris last September, which attracted 40,000 visitors, and the documentary, ‘Inside the Dream,’ that already counts 45 million views, show that J’Adore’s aura remains intact,” Courtois said.
The “Dior J’Adore!” exhibition, which ran from Sept. 27 through Oct. 8, mined the fragrance’s heritage and analyzed its centricity at Dior — not least due to its color gold — and to artists, mainstays for the brand still today.
The name J’Adore came from the expression of adoration — “j’adore” — that Christian Dior himself frequently used, as did John Galliano, the designer, more recently in the house’s history.
The “Inside the Dream” documentary, which was released late last year, takes viewers behind the scenes of how the L’Or de J’Adore fragrance, a riff on J’Adore, was created over 18 months, globe-trotting to India and Japan, as well as to the fields of the South of France where Dior fragrance flowers are grown.
Of Theron, Courtois said: “Charlize is continuing her longstanding ambassadorship with Dior lending her timeless charisma and beauty to key luxury categories: jewelry and skin care. And she will also be taking on the role as spokesperson for the house on matters of sustainable development, as well as supporting philanthropic initiatives.”
Before J’Adore was launched in 1999, Dior reassessed its “Diorness” and sought to launch a scent that was lighter and sweeter than one of its then bestsellers, Poison. In the process, Dior hoped to create a new classic, which the results indicate it did.
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