“The best way to the fountain of youth is to reconnect with wonder”: Natalie Portman on Miss Dior, beauty and boldness

“I’ll do anything for love, as long as there’s no self-sacrifice,” Natalie Portman says over a Zoom call with regional press. It’s a sentiment that feels quintessentially Miss Dior: fearless, romantic, and devoted to love in its most authentic form.

For more than a decade, Natalie has been the face of the Miss Dior fragrance franchise, a partnership that has grown and evolved alongside her own life. “It’s been incredible,” she reflects. “Over the years, I’ve gone through huge personal and professional changes — creating my production company, becoming a mother, and exploring new creative directions. Miss Dior has been part of all those moments, and the brand really feels like family now.”

That sense of evolution is mirrored in the perfume itself. Since its debut in 1947 as a tribute to Christian Dior’s sister Catherine, a resistance fighter who survived imprisonment in a concentration camp, Miss Dior has reinvented itself multiple times. This year, Dior’s perfume creation director Francis Kurkdjian unveils Miss Dior Essence, a concentrated, chypre-inspired composition he describes as “fruity, luscious, juicy, and sensual.”

“I imagined the scent of Miss Dior Essence as a sexy and irreverent pop-art statement, like a reflection of the Serge Gainsbourg song Comic Strip, which goes SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! WIZZ!,” Francis explains. Built around a jammy blackberry and elderflower accord with a fruitier jasmine sambac heart and a grounding oakwood base, the scent is at once playful, addictive, and powerful. “My Miss Dior is rather like contemporary girls… intense and concentrated, it leaves a vivid, addictive scent behind that is hyper-feminine, but also refuses anything that might hinder freedom.”

For Natalie, the fragrance is more than a scent, it’s a manifesto. “When we look at beauty as self-expression, rather than trying to look the same, that’s when we celebrate individuality,” she says. “That’s also what Miss Dior represents: confident femininity, being true to yourself, and expressing it boldly.”

Her understanding of beauty has been shaped since she was a child. “I was lucky to be behind the curtain as a kid,” she recalls. “I got to see all the tricks — lighting, hair, makeup — that make people look a certain way. Very early on, I realised the images I was seeing weren’t reality. I understood beauty as an art of expression.”

Natalie’s own routine echoes that simplicity. A vegan diet, plenty of water, and minimal makeup to keep her skin and look natural. “I like to keep it very minimal, though I’m lucky to have all the Dior products lined up,” she says.

Her philosophy extends beyond beauty. With her production company MountainA, co-founded with Sophie Mas, and her involvement with Angel City FC, Natalie celebrates female leadership. “Beauty and self-expression are about confidence, but it’s also about how we uplift each other,” she explains.

This idea of confidence also ties into her view on youth and vitality. Discussing her film Fountain of Youth, Natalie reflects: “The best way to get to the fountain of youth is to reconnect with wonder and awe and to be amazed by the world.”

Miss Dior Essence, she says, embodies that same energy. “For me, scent is a way into character, just like hair, makeup, or costume. So much of how someone expresses themselves comes through these external details.”

Even the smallest rituals hold meaning. She remembers citrus orchards and the smell of jasmine in Tunisian markets as a child, and shares a perfuming hack from her mother: “Spray it in the air and walk through it, so it’s subtle but still enveloping.” Music also plays a role in her mood, with Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine taking her back to her youth and reminding her to feel bold.

To Natalie, Miss Dior and now Miss Dior Essence is more than a fragrance; they represent self-expression, uninhibited femininity, and the many facets of love. As she puts it, “Once you are true to yourself, you can connect with others more deeply and more fulfillingly.”