Christian Dior was born in 1905 in the small seaside town of Granville, near Normandy in France. His wealthy parents (rolling in money made from fertilizer (not literally)) moved the family to Paris five years later, and had hopes that Christian would become a diplomat, but the young Dior’s passion lay instead in art and fashion. His father’s money enabled him to open a small art gallery, but after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 his family was left bankrupt, and the gallery was forced to close. Dior instead began to sell design sketches outside of Paris’ fashion houses, eventually catching the eye and becoming a designer for Lucien Lelong, where he was commissioned to produce the outfits of Nazi officers’ wives during the Second World War.

Post-war, Dior formed his own fashion house, and his voluptuous, curvaceous ladies’ designs caused a sensation in Paris, firmly catapulting the city back to its status as Europe’s fashion capital after the war years. Dior led from the front in the perfume industry too, creating Miss Dior, one of the world’s first ‘designer’ perfumes, in 1948. Miss Dior Cherie is a fragrance marketed as the younger sister of the original, with a mischievous and youthful side. The perfume contains top notes of green tangerine, strawberry, and violet; a heart of warm popcorn and pink jasmine; and a lasting base of patchouli and white musk.

It wasn’t just women, however, that were feeling the benefits of Dior’s great sense of smell: Fahrenheit is his classic men’s scent. Warm, subtle and distinctive, the woody flowery fragrance is characterised by a clashing of extreme notes, and contains top notes of mandarin orange, lavender, lemon, bergamot, and chamomile; a heart made up of nutmeg, carnation, sandalwood, honeysuckle, violet, jasmine, and lily of the valley; and a base consisting of amber, patchouli, tonka bean, and sensual vetiver musk.

Dior died aged just 52, while on holiday in Italy in 1957. The causes of this are mysterious: the death was originally put down to a heart attack caused by choking on a fish bone, but rumours have abounded since that his death was in fact due to a particularly strenuous sexual encounter.