Natalie Portman has been in the public eye for most of her life. From the moment she made her feature debut in Léon: The Professional at just 11 years old, she grew up on screen. Audiences have watched her transform from child star to Oscar-winner, film producer, director, activist, and mother.
Alongside her decades-long career, another relationship has quietly and steadily grown: Her partnership with Miss Dior. Portman has been the face of the fragrance for 15 years, a role that she describes as evolving in step with her own life. “I felt much more intimidated by it at the beginning, but working with Dior for so long, the team has really become like a family and I am much more at ease now. They were with me before I had kids and as I’ve gotten older and gone through different periods of my life. The Miss Dior character has grown as I have grown,” she says.
This sense of parallel growth is central to her latest campaign for Miss Dior Essence, the newest incarnation of the Maison’s iconic line. Portman, now 44, calls it “floral, feminine, bold.” And when she talks about flowers, one in particular holds a deep personal connection. “Jasmine brings a lot of memories to me. I went to North Africa in my early 20s and shot Star Wars Episode II in Tunisia, and later on travelled to Morocco by myself. In the markets, kids would come up to me with handfuls of jasmine. It has continued being part of my life in LA and even in Paris. There is a lot of jasmine in the city,” she recalls.
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Composed by Dior’s Perfume Creation Director Francis Kurkdjian, whom Portman describes as “a poet of scent,” Miss Dior Essence balances intensity and softness. “Our conversations always remind me of how magical the sense of smell is,” she says. The fragrance itself is classified as a chypre, deeply fruity, gourmand, woody and floral. Reminiscent of a sweet jam tart, it opens with top notes of blackberry and elderflower, leads into a bouquet of jasmine, and is anchored by oak at the base. For Portman, its story is clear: “Miss Dior Essence has this childlike feeling of spring, romance, flowers, and that memory of what it is like to be young, free, wild and in love.”
Although the Miss Dior persona is shaped by the creative team, Portman acknowledges that her own spirit has become entwined with it. “The character was definitely created by the Miss Dior team, but since it is associated with me as a person, some of it is based on who I am. The main inspiration comes from Catherine Dior, who was the original Miss Dior for her brother Christian. The energy of her spirit is the inspiration for what the character is: A courageous, strong, bold, free, liberated woman who stands up for justice.”
Her respect for Catherine Dior only deepened as she learned more about her story. “Catherine was an incredibly courageous woman. She was very active in the Resistance to the Nazis during the war, was sent to a concentration camp, survived and came back. I think her story also gives a lot of meaning to the whole enterprise of what Christian Dior was doing: He was trying to revive beauty after a very ugly time, and to bring it back into people’s lives after they had lived through so much horror. I think that’s so necessary, and that there can be so much pleasure and meaning in beauty and in the power of humans to create beautiful things.”
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The new campaign was filmed in Paris, the city Portman now calls home. One of its most striking moments shows Portman in a flowing red and black dress, an image that encapsulates the duality of the Miss Dior woman. “I love how strong yet feminine it is. You feel like she’s ready to run with those flat boots and shorts in the front. But it’s very romantic in the back, like she’s all of a sudden ready to go to the ball.”
Another scene takes place in the Bibliothèque Richelieu, a grand Parisian library. “I love libraries and being surrounded by books. I also love public spaces, they are so important, and the concept of property in a library is something I am very attached to: You use something when you need it and then everyone else can use it too. I wish everything was more like that.”
After 15 years, what stands out most to Portman is how genuine her connection with Dior feels. “The collaboration with Dior does feel like a long-term relationship, where we are always working with interesting artists, supporting female artists by commissioning them. There is a lot of genuine support for creativity and creators.” It’s a relationship that has grown as she has grown, and Miss Dior Essence feels like a natural next chapter: playful, romantic and bold, yet rooted in strength. For Portman, it isn’t just another fragrance launch. It’s a reminder of freedom, youth, and the thrill of being in love—the kind of feeling you want to bottle up and keep forever.
All photos courtesy of Dior Beauty.