In the latest chapter of the long and storied career of Chanel No. 5, Audrey Tautou conjures up the romance and mystique of the fragrance in a short film about fate and missed connections set on the Orient Express and in Istanbul. (Check it out here plus other cool assets, including an interview with director, Jean-Pierret Jeunet, and the history of the fragrance charmingly recounted by Chanel's current Nose-in-Chief, Jacques Polge.) As Polge points, one of the reasons for the ongoing popularity of Chanel No. 5 is the element of mystery: "There are many perfumes which we immediately recognize. These perfumes get tired. Chanel No. 5 has never been like that. Every woman adds something of herself to it."
Today we consider the fragrance a classic, but when it was introduced in 1921, it was a perfume world iconoclast. Here are some of the "secrets" that explain its enduring charm:
SECRET No. 1: A FASHIONABLE COLLABORATION
During a summertime visit to Monte Carlo accompanied by the Great Duke Dimitri of Russia, a conversation among friends gave Coco Chanel the idea to launch a fragrance - this during a time when couturiers and perfumers practiced very separate arts. As to why she chose the almost registration-like "No. 5" symbol adorning a laboratory'ish flacon...was it the 5th sample she was presented with, or perhaps it was the occult-correlation with Leo, her astrological sign (the 5th in the zodiac) and what she considered her lucky number....
When Chanel met Ernest Beaux in 1921 in his laboratory near Grasse, the birthplace of French perfumery, she requested of the former perfumer to the court of the tsar a "women's fragrance that smells like women," one that was simultaneously familiar and not. "I want to give women an artificial fragrance. I say artificial because it will be fabricated. I want a fragrance that is composed." Unusually, Beaux used 80 ingredients heightened by aldehydes (a clever insight Polge considers the perfume equivalent of spritzing lemon juice over strawberries), and vast quantities of local jasmine. (image: source)
From the Extra-Superior grade ylang-ylang - a yellow flower with long petals harvested in Madagascar and Mayotte - to May rose, thus named because it flowers but once a year for three weeks in the 5th (!) month of year when it is gathered in the early morning before the sun has a chance to damage the fragile blooms, to jasmine galore from Grasse, No. 5 is replete with amazing and precious flowers that are shipped in from around the world. In concert, they give the fragrance its signature identity. (Rose Centifolia aka May rose image: Louis Boujac)
SECRET No. 4: LUXURIOUS PACKAGING
At an in-house production site near Paris, No. 5 is bottled and sealed using the traditional baudruchage method in which a fine membrane is applied over the neck of the bottle by hand and then made air- and water-tight with two rows of black pearl-cotton yarn, followed by a final wax stamp. Labor-intensive, yes, but a quixotic practice that makes opening a bottle of the iconic perfume that much more special. (image: Louis Boujac)
In 1937, Mademoiselle appointed herself ambassador for No. 5; when asked what she wore to bed, Marilyn Monroe famously declared "Why, Chanel No. 5, of course!" Other world-class beauties associated with No. 5 include Candice Bergen, Suzy Parker, Lauren Hutton, Jean Shrimpton, Nicole Kidman, Catherine Deneuve, and now, Audrey Tatou.
- Lesley Scott