Hitting the club on a Monday? It might sound like a tough sell—but not under Dior Beauty’s watch. To celebrate the unveiling of the new J’adore Intense fragrance, guests ventured high up into The Hills for a late-night house party in a famed Brutalist fortress overlooking 90210.
Upon arrival to the $65 million monolithic mansion, guests—think: young Hollywood, TikTokers, and IMDb homepage up-and-comers—were greeted by a trio of artfully-arranged fallen chandeliers in the front courtyard; immediately bringing to mind the gilded Palace of Versailles backdrop in the campaign starring the fragrance’s muse, Rihanna.
In a vignette just as breathtaking, French DJs (and twins!) Regis and Brice Abby of Doppelganger Paris were manning the decks in a booth perched on the cusp of the bluff, spinning a set of Sade and ’70s disco-infused house music against panoramic views of the city. Attendees decked out in slinky and sensual—and predominantly black—cocktail attire roamed throughout the 18,000 square-foot all-concrete space. Some paused to pose against roaring fireplaces, while others sank into taupe-hued Mario Bellini modular sofas and perched their Lady Dior bags on bar tables emblazoned with black-and-white images from Versailles. Instagram-familiar faces pretended to play games of pool as friends whipped out their G9 cameras to capture the scene. All the while, waiters weaved through the glamorous crowd with trays adorned with either chilled flutes of Champagne, or the real star of the show: the instantly-recognizable J’adore Dior bottle, now housing the reimagined scent.
“Tonight is a big celebration and an important step for J’adore—because J’adore is now a young adult, in a way,” Dior Perfume creation director Francis Kurkdjian told Vogue in a quiet corner. “We’re celebrating this second quarter of the millennium with a new olfactive signature—J’adore Intense, embodied by the iconic Rihanna. We reshuffled and re-orchestrated the entire floral bouquet with a gourmand, which enhances the vibrancy.”
It was only right that the souped-up, decadent concentration come with a suitably dynamo front woman. “To me, Rihanna is someone that steps down from her pedestal and immerses herself with the crowd in a very human way,” Kurkdjian praised. “There is something very playful about her femininity, and what I also like is the idea of how she looks like she’s always on stage—but in a very cool, normal way. That was the idea with J’adore Intense; to translate that energy into a scent that you could wear all day long.”
Said scent—in the words of Kurkdjian: “something very warm and sensual; not delicate but not overpowering either”—could indeed be sensed in the air at the party. As Grammy Award-winning pianist Brian Kennedy performed at a grand piano, guests including Lana Condor, Skai Jackson, Alexandra Shipp, and Jurnee Smollett made the rounds and bopped to the music. Cocktails and virgin concoctions nodded to the perfume’s notes too, with mixologists whipping up beverages with jasmine tea, rose water, and ylang-ylang garnishes.
Once the clock’s hands hit 10.01 p.m, the basement-level Club J’adore was ready to welcome the 400-person crowd and keep the party going. It had everything you could want from a night out—including bottle service, agenda-setting dance troupes, DJ Kitty Ca$h blasting out tunes, endless supplies of burgers and fries delivered straight to the dance floor, and even smoke machines for good measure. Intense? Sure—but it hit the right note.
