The Secret of Chanel No. 5 (37 page)

14
Having established No. 5's appeal, she returned to the idea of giving these samples of the scent to her most loyal clients as holiday gifts:
Details of the perfume's launch, here and below, from various sources, including Galante,
Mademoiselle Chanel,
76; Madsen,
Chanel,
135.

1
She and Molyneux also shared a certain sense of chaste minimalism:
On Molyneux as a designer, see
Decades of Fashion
(Potsdam, Germany: H. F. Ulmann, 2008).

2
As Luca Turin writes: “[Edward Molyneux's] Numéro Cinq is surpassingly beautiful and strange”:
Luca Turin, “Cinq Bis,”
NZZ Folio: Die Zeitschrift der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung,
February 2008, www.nzzfolio.ch/www/d80bd71b-b264-4db4-afd0-277884b93470/showarticle/ee2a4e74-3cd7-4b81-86da-93db1de6f257.aspx; see also
Perfume Intelligence,
www.perfumeintelligence.co.uk/library/perfume/m/houses/Moly.htm. Lefkowith suggests the later date and proposes that Molyneux number three fragrance was named after the address of Maxim's in Paris; see
The Art of Perfume,
200.

According to archival records at Guerlain, Shalimar was actually invented–and briefly launched–in 1921, the same year as Chanel No. 5 and, perhaps, as Molyneux's Numéro Cinq. When socialites in New York City became enamoured of the fragrance worn by Guerlain's wife, Shalimar was relaunched in 1925, with phenomenal success.

3
as Misia Sert put it, “success beyond anything we could have imagined … the hen laying golden eggs”:
Madsen,
Chanel,
135.

4
Chanel No. 5, Beaux remembered, “was already a remarkable success”:
Beaux went on to say in his “Souvenirs” that “ … it was the time of the Conférence de Cannes and the factory at La Bocca was the kind of thing that attracted distinguished visitors, who came curious to see my laboratory and the large installations in the soap factory. I had visits from Briand, Loucheur, Lloyd George, and lots of others. The great caricaturist Sem, he also came one day and after having smelled a number of laboratory trials and finished perfumes–he regarded me for an instant–and dubbed me Minister of the Nose.”

5
legendary land of Cockaigne (in French the
pays de Cocagne),
the mythical land of luxury and ease:
See Herman Pleij,
Dreaming of Cockaigne,
trans. Diane Webb (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).

6
“Suffering makes people better, not pleasure …”:
Baillén,
Chanel Solitaire,
146.

7
As neuroscientist Rachel Herz writes in her book
The Scent of Desire,
“the areas … “:
Herz,
Scent of Desire,
3.

8
The Wertheimers had made their fortunes at Bourjois selling perfumes and cosmetics manufactured for the theater and vaudeville stage:
Details here and following drawn from various sources, including the various biographies of Coco Chanel and from Bruno Abescat and Yves Stavridès, “Derrière l'Empire Chanel … la Fabuleuse Histoire des Wertheimer,”
L'Express,
April 7, 2005, 16–30; July 11, 2005, 84–88; July 18, 2005, 82–86; July 25, 2005, 76–80; August 1, 2005, 74–78; August 8, 2005, 80–84, part 1, 29.

9
Within just a few years, magazines would begin encouraging women to “analyz[e] one's own personality to discover ‘its' style”:
Sarah Berry,
Screen Style: Fashion and Femininity in 1930s Hollywood
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 6.

10
who took pleasure in swallowing up the smaller companies with whom he partnered was already well known:
See Toledano and Coty,
François Coty,
87; the classic example is the exchange between Coty and Paul Poiret. Coty came to Poiret announcing he was there to buy his business. When Poiret told him it wasn't for sale, Coty said, “You will take fifteen years before you reach any great importance. If you come with me, you will profit from my management, and in two years you will be worth as much as I am.” Poiret replied, “But in two years my business would be yours, while in the contrary case, in fifteen years it would still be my own property.” As it turned out, fifteen years later Poiret was bankrupt.

11
She wanted to keep “her association with the Wertheimers … at arm's length”:
Madsen,
Chanel,
129.

12
“her fear of losing control over her fashion house made her sign away the perfume for ten percent of the corporation”:
Ibid.

13
Coco Chanel told them, “Form a company if you like, but I am not interested in getting involved in your business”:
Galante,
Mademoiselle Chanel,
146.

14
contract read: “Mademoiselle Chanel, dress designer … all perfumery products, makeups, soaps, etc.”:
Galante,
Mademoiselle Chanel,
147.

15
Chanel “only first-class products” that she deemed sufficiently luxurious:
Galante,
Mademoiselle Chanel,
148.

16
by 1922 he had broken ties with the company and moved to Charabot, a company specializing in perfume materials:
Biographical details on Ernest Beaux are generally scanty. See Gilberte Beaux,
Une femme libre
(Paris: Fayard, 2006). He is also mentioned in passing during the First World War in Rasskavov,
Notes of a Prisoner,
1935.

1
American women had, in the words of one historian, “the greatest value of surplus [money] ever given to women to spend in all of history”:
Berry,
Screen Style,
2.

2
“Luxury perfume,” the brochure reads, “this term …”:
Catalog, 1924, Chanel archives.

3
Coco Chanel shopped there herself on occasion:
See François Chaille,
The Book of Ties
(Paris: Flammarion, 1994), 119.

4
Her real model was one of Boy Capel's whisky decanters:
Chanel archives.

5
No. 5 bottle as “solemn, ultra-simple, quasi-pharmaceutical”:
Madsen,
Chanel,
133.

6
Already “the art of the bottle tend[ing] … to simplicity of lines and decoration”:
Fontan,
Générations Bourjois,
78.

7
The 1907 Lalique bottle for François Coty's La Rose Jacqueminot (1903):
See the image, for example, in Morris,
Fragrance,
200. Some sources date the release of Coty's blockbuster to 1904, e.g., Michael Edwards,
Perfume Legends,
290.

8
At least as early as 1920, Bourjois's bottle for its Ashes of Roses (1909):
See, for example, the image in Fontan,
Générations Bourjois,
78.

9
The innovations that directly led to the bottle we know today only happened in 1924:
Chanel archives.

10
Place Vendôme, the original flask didn't yet have that familiar faceted large stopper:
Chanel archives notes that there is no evidence of any direct connection; Coco Chanel admired octagonal shapes in general and often used them in her designs.

11
experts have uncovered at least one rare example of Rallet No. 1:
See essay and photography by Philip Goutell, “Le No. 1,”
Perfume Projects,
www.perfume projects.com/museum/bottles/Rallet_No1.shtml.

12
and, when not in the standard
parfum
concentration, it included the strength in
eau de toilette
or
eau de cologne
–two other early:
Chanel archives; according to archivists, the
parfum, eau de toilette,
and
eau de cologne
concentrations were introduced in 1924–25, the
eau de parfum
in the 1950s, and a powder in 1986. Generally, perfumes come in four different “strengths,” and sometimes–as in the case of Chanel No. 5–those different strengths are actually different formulas. All perfumes are dissolved in a neutral base, usually an odorless alcohol or a mixture of alcohol and water, and the different terms signal to a consumer what percentage of the final product is aromatic material. The most concentrated version of the scent is the
parfum
version, often known as the
extrait
or extract, which can be anywhere from 15 to 40 percent pure scent, and therefore 60 to 85 percent neutral. This is the kind of perfume that almost always comes only in the small dropper bottles, and its aroma is very concentrated.
Eau de parfum,
however, is often available as a spray, and it typically has 10 to 20 percent aromatics. Obviously, those ballpark numbers mean the percentages across the industry aren't standard.
Eau de toilette
is generally 5 to 15 percent scented material, while
eau de cologne
is reserved for scent concentrations that are usually less than 5 percent aromatic and, for historical reasons, are typically light and fruity.

Chanel No. 5 today is available only in
parfum, eau de parfum,
and
eau de toilette
–or, in the shorthand lingo of the perfume enthusiast, as
extrait, EdP,
and
EdT.
In the late 1970s, when Jacques Polge started at Chanel as the perfumer, there was a rather different lineup: a
parfum,
a classic
eau de toilette,
and an
eau de cologne.
The
eau de cologne
was discontinued in the 1990s, and during his tenure the
eau de parfum
was added.

Chanel No. 5 is also one of those cases where, at each concentration, the formula is slightly different. The reason behind this is a simple one. When Ernest Beaux and his successors thought of artistic creation, it was the already bestselling
parfum
version, and, when the
eau de toilette
was developed, no one wanted to create a scent that would compete with the success of the original. As a result, the current
eau de toilette
version of Chanel No. 5, which dates from the 1950s, increased the sandalwood accord, resulting in a scent that is slightly more sweet and woody. When Polge introduced the
eau de parfum
in the 1980s, it followed the same philosophy. This time, he added a higher vanilla infusion. The
parfum,
meanwhile, is the 1920 original.

Recently, Chanel also introduced Eau Première, which is essentially a lighter, updated version of the original.

13
The sans-serif font was drawn from contemporary
avant-garde: See Alice Rawsthorn, “Message in a Bottle,”
New York Time
s, February 22, 2009, www.nytimes.com/indexes/2009/02/22/style/t/index.html#pagewanted=0&page Name=22rawsthorn&. She writes that the bottle's “geometric shape evoked the ‘purist villas' that pioneering Modernist architects like Le Corbusier were building for fashionable clients in and around Paris. The sans-serif lettering was similar to the radical typefaces being developed by avant-garde designers like Jan Tschichold and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in Germany.”

14
American heiress Irène Bretz:
See Mark Hughes, “Logos That Became Legends, Icons from the World of Advertising,”
The Independent,
January 4, 2008, www.independent.co.uk/news/media/logos-that-became-legends-icons-from-the-world-of-advertising-768077.html; also Château Crémat website, www.chateau-cremat.com/histoire.php, accessed November 2, 2009.

15
At the royal château in Blois, the symbol was carved in white in the private apartments:
For details, see Leonie Freida,
Catherine de Medici, Renaissance Queen of France
(New York: HarperCollins, 2005); and (on Queen Claude of France) Desmond Seward,
Prince of the Renaissance, the Life of François I
(London: Constable, 1973).

16
F. Scott Fitzgerald could write of the character of Nicole, in his masterpiece
Tender Is the Night
(1934), that “She bathed …”:
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Tender Is the Night
(New York: Scribner's, 1934), 294; chapter 8.

1
Sales of French perfume in America increased more than 700 percent:
Caldwell, “1920–29: French Mystique in the American Perfume Market.”

2
identical bottles … an odd way to capitalize on the growing international fame of Coco Chanel's signature scent:
On other perfume houses using standard bottle shapes, see, for example, Michèle Atlas and Alain Monniat,
Guerlain: les flacons à parfum depuis 1828
(Toulouse: Éditions Milan, 1997), 42.

3
it was simply called the “Style Moderne” … an “exquisite presentation of a few choice luxury commodities”:
Tim Benton and Ghislaine Wood,
Art Deco: 1910–1931
(New York: Bulfinch Press, 2003), 161.

4
“the promotion of cinema was a means of vaunting the modernity of French industrial and cultural production”:
Ibid.

5
fanciful stalls hosted by firms like Houbigant, Parfums de Rosine, Lenthéric, D'Orsay, Roger et Gallet, Molyneux, and Coty:
See Denise Silvester-Carr, “A Celebration of Style,”
History Today,
vol. 53, April 2003. Nigel Groom notes that Eugène Rimmel had displayed a perfume fountain at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, which was very popular, and that Rimmel, author of
The Book of Perfumes
(1865), sold
Great Exhibition Bouquet
perfume; this was probably the inspiration for the perfume fountain in Paris in 1925; Groom,
Perfume Handbook,
285. See also Mitchell Owens, “They Held the Scent of Glamour,”
New York Times,
July 20, 1997, www.nytimes.com/1997/07/20/ arts/they-held-the-scent-of-glamour.html; Fontan,
Générations Bourjois;
and
Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes
(1925 catalog), 10 vols. (New York, Garland Publishing, 1977).