Chanel Nº 5
Chanel Nº 5 is a women's perfume from the house of Chanel , which the French fashion designer Coco Chanel launched in Paris in 1921 and which has been sold by the fashion company ever since.
Chanel Nº 5 is the first in a series of perfumes launched by Chanel over the years and is considered the most successful women's fragrance of all time. Even today, » Chanel Nº 5 « is represented in the top 10 best-selling perfumes worldwide. Parfums Chanel estimates that a bottle is sold every 30 seconds worldwide. The fragrance, which is characterized by an overdose of a 1: 1: 1 accord of the aldehydes C-10 ( decanal ), C-11 (undecanal) and C-12 ( dodecanal ), was created by the French chemist and former perfumer at the Russian Court of the Tsars , Ernest Beaux .
Scent
In contrast to the perfumes common in the times of fin de siècle , Chanel No. 5 does not come from the scent of a single flower, but is a complex composition of originally exactly 31 perfume raw materials (bases not broken down), even if Chanel itself and in the literature repeatedly reported about 80 or even 250 ingredients.
The top note is dominated by the bright, fresh, slightly metallic-waxy-smoky aldehyde complex C-10 / C-11 / C-12 (1: 1: 1, 0.6%) with its typical hints of waxy rose petals and orange peel. The hesprid citrus-like facets are absorbed and underlined by bergamot oil , linalool and petitgrain oil . The heart note is spanned by the corner pillars of jasmine , rose , lily of the valley (hydroxycitronellal), iris butter and ylang-ylang oil . In the first attempts at adapting Beaux's perfume »Bouquet de Catherine« , which he had developed in 1912 in Russia in honor of Tsarina Catherine the Great and which he is now presenting to Chanel, Beaux had taken back the proportion of real rose essence and real jasmine absolute for price reasons otherwise the fragrance would have become unaffordable. Since Mademoiselle Chanel insisted on the intensity of the jasmine component , he did this with the commercial jasmine base Jasmophore and his own rose base "Rose EB" ( EB for Ernest Beaux). The bloomy, flowery heart is nuanced by Jonone (Iralia) with its powdered, voluminous violet note , which takes up the iris theme and extends it. Other ingredients include May rose , neroli -essence and Brazilian tonka beans . Spicy accents of cassia and isoeugenol set points of tension and lead to the background of the composition. What is unusual here for a women's fragrance is the vetiver note (Java quality) , which sets a masculine counterpoint at the beginning of the base note and thus testifies to Beaux's handwriting. This wood note is nuanced by sandalwood and patchouli oil . Vanillin , coumarin and storax then lead to the emphatically sensual musk complex, which determines the theme in the final act of the composition and in the original from 1921 consisted of real musk and civet infusion in combination with the nitro- musk bodies musk ketone and musk ambrette , which were almost imperceptibly caressed by oak moss and cinnamon bark . Since real musk is prohibited for species protection reasons and nitro musk is limited due to its phototoxicity, the formula has been repeatedly adapted over time and adapted to new safety standards.
Development of the fragrance
Ernest Beaux came to France at the end of 1919 as one of the last former employees of the Russian perfume manufacturer and purveyor to the Tsar, Alphonse Rallet & Co. , from Moscow to the Canner branch of the French perfume manufacturer Chiris from Grasse , who had bought the Rallet company. In order to adapt the formula of Beaux ' "Bouquet de Catherine" , which had been renamed "Rallet N ° 1" in 1914 , to the French perfume raw materials, he resumed work on "Rallet Nº 1" in Cannes. This resulted in a series of adaptation attempts from which Coco Chanel later selected Nº 5 for her own perfume. Since Beaux was employed by Chiris at the time before he switched to the newly founded Parfums Chanel in 1924, taking away the formula, which actually went back to the Rallet company with the »Bouquet de Catherine« , was not welcome. After the initial success of »Chanel Nº 5« , Chiris commissioned the perfumer Vincent Roubert , who had taken over Beaux's position, in 1926 to create a copy based on the original »Bouquet de Catherine« . The result was "L'Aimant" (Coty, 1926), which actually threatened to endanger the success of "Chanel Nº 5" at first.
In her early days as a fashion designer, Coco Chanel had strictly rejected perfume: “Women only use perfume when they have bad smells to hide.” Perfumes may have been the epitome of addiction for them, like lace and pearls , and this is how she made her fashion - Rival Paul Poiret also had no competition when he launched Parfums de Rosine, the first designer fragrances on the market in 1911. This only changed with Chanel's new lover, the Grand Duke Dmitri , who introduced her to Ernest Beaux and probably also to the "Bouquet de Catherine" that Dmitri's sister used. In the late summer of 1920, on a trip to Cannes , Coco and Dmitri met Ernest Beaux in his laboratory, where he presented his works to them. Actually only intended as a Christmas present for their best customers and initially limited to 100 bottles, Chanel decided on the fifth fragrance sample of the two series that Beaux presented and numbered 1–5 and 20–24 respectively. When he asked her what she would like to name the perfume, she replied: "I always launch my collection on the fifth day of the fifth month, the five seems to bring me luck - that's why I want to name it Nº 5 ". Your perfume should be a "woman's perfume with a woman's scent" . When the gifted customers asked for more supplies, "Chanel Nº 5" was officially offered for sale in 1922.
Coco Chanel fought against her own fragrance icon at times, because she felt disadvantaged by her business partners Theophilus Bader and Ernest Wertheimer, to whom she had ceded all rights to her fragrances when she founded Parfums Chanel in 1924 . With Beaux's help, she launched “Mademoiselle Chanel Nº 1” in her own boutiques in 1946 , in which instead of the aldehyde overdose, the iris / violet accord came to the fore. Although she was legally prohibited from selling her own Chanel fragrances in France at the instigation of her partners, she was able to force Wertheimer to increase her shares through her branches in the USA, where customers reacted unsettled, and ultimately from 1954 onwards, she also made her comeback as Finance couturier.
The Extrait Parfum by Chanel No.5 is one of the last perfumes to contain jasmine and may rose from Chanel's own production in Grasse , which form the flowery heart note. The Eau de Toilette and the Eau de Parfum (created by Jacques Polge in 1986) differ in their composition from the Extrait Parfum and are produced and bottled by machines. Since 2008 there has been a new, lighter variation, the Nº 5 Eau Première .
Legends about the origin
There are numerous legends about the origin of the fragrance, to which Coco Chanel and Ernest Beaux contributed significantly:
- Legend has it that the 0.6% overdose of the aldehyde accord is due to a mixing error by Beaux's assistant, who used the aldehydes in pure form instead of a 10% dilution. However, this seems unlikely as the rose and jasmine accord is perfectly balanced against the aldehyde complex. It is therefore very likely that the composition is the result of systematic studies.
- According to another legend, Beaux got the idea for this fragrance when he was serving on the Kola Peninsula in Murmansk Oblast during the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1919 and the extremely fresh scent of the lakes and rivers in the light of the arctic midnight sun reminded him of aldehydes. This is also unlikely, since Beaux had already used aldehydes in his fragrance » Bouquet de Catherine « in 1913 , inspired by the successful fragrance » Quelques Fleurs « by the French perfumer Robert Bienaimés (1876–1960) for the perfume manufacturer Houbigant in 1912.
- Most likely, what Beaux 'perfumers Jean Carles [ Ma Griffe (Carven, 1946)] and Edmond Roudnitska [ Femme (Rochas, 1944), Eau Sauvage (Dior, 1966)] reported, namely that " Chanel Nº 5 " Remake of Beaux's " Bouquet de Catherine " ( Buket Ekaterina ) or " Rallet Nº 1 " was.
Bottle
Coco Chanel himself designed the simple, minimalist glass bottle for Perfume No. 5, the octagonal shape of which is reminiscent of the floor plan of the Place Vendôme in Paris - where Mademoiselle lived in the Hotel Ritz . The original bottle with a narrow neck and a round peg was of the glass manufacturer Brosse for a vial from the travel toiletry bag was made of Cocos verunglücktem lovers Boy Chapel. In 1924 the bottle was widened and got an octagonal stopper. In the 1950s and 1970s, the stopper was enlarged and finally narrowed again in 1986. This bottle shape is also used for other perfumes from the house of Chanel, for example since 1984 for Coco . Each bottle of the Extrait perfume Chanel No. 5 is still sealed airtight by hand with a gold bat skin .
Notoriety
At the latest after Marilyn Monroe's famous statement from 1952 “I only wear a few drops of Chanel Nº 5 to sleep” , the success of “Chanel Nº 5” could no longer be stopped and it has remained unbroken to this day. The classic, simple flacon, which is a trademark of the Chanel company, was included in the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City in 1959 . It was also the subject of a work by Andy Warhol , who in 1964 created a series of nine serigraphs with the image of the bottle in different color compositions. In the 1960s, the artistic director of Chanel, Jacques Helleu, made a massive contribution to the success of the Chanel No. 5 at. From 1968 Catherine Deneuve initially acted as the face of the perfume advertising for the American market . In 1969 the first advertising film was made for »Chanel Nº 5« .
As early as 1920 and 1930, Chanel launched other fragrances, all of which came from Ernest Beaux, including “Chanel Nº 22” (1922) and “Cuir de Russie” (1924), “Gardenia” (1925), and “Bois des Îles” (1926) ). In 1954, Ernest Beaux retired and was succeeded by Henri Robert. He created “Chanel Nº 19” for Coco Chanel , which was launched on her birthday (1970), a year before her death, and “Cristalle” (1974). Henri Robert's successor was Jacques Polge, who composed, among others, “Coco” (1984), “Égoïste” (1990), “Allure” (1996), “Coco Mademoiselle” (2001) and “Chance” (2004).
From the 1970s onwards, the Chanel house advertised its perfumes, in particular »Chanel Nº 5« , with familiar faces, including Candice Bergen , Suzy Parker , Ali MacGraw , Lauren Hutton , Carole Bouquet , Estella Warren , Nicole Kidman , Vanessa Paradis and Audrey Tautou . The latter also played the main role in the film Coco Chanel - The Beginning of a Passion (original title: Coco avant Chanel ). In 2012, Brad Pitt was the first man to appear as an advertising face for the Chanel No. 5 in front of the camera.
Trivia
Based on the novel “ Chanel No. 5 ” by Bobby E. Lüthge , an operetta “ Chanel No. 5 ” was created in 1947 (libretto: Bobby E. Lüthge, music by Friedrich Schröder , lyrics by Günther Schwenn ), which was performed in the Berlin Metropol Theater .
literature
- Tilar J. Mazzeo: Chanel Nº 5: The history of the most famous perfume in the world , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag dtv, 2nd edition, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-423-34817-1
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kidman Moulin Rouge reprises role for Chanel , The Guardian, October 15, 2004
- ↑ Vis à vis: The fragrance of the century ; No. 79, 2019
- ↑ Michael Edwards: Perfume Legends: French Feminine Fragrances , HM Éditions, Levallois, France, 1996, p. 43.
- ^ Edmond Roudnitska: The Art of Perfumery in Perfumes: Art, Science and Technology , PM Müller, D. Lamparsky; Ed., Elsevier Science Publishers, Barking, England, 1991, pp. 5-6.
- ↑ Joachim Laukenmann: It smells like a remake. Chanel Nº 5 was created from a flopped Russian perfume , Sunday newspaper of September 30, 2007, p. 80.
- ↑ Libbe, Erijotik and Zoff , Der Spiegel 16/1952, at spiegel.de
- ↑ Chanel No. 5 , Operetta (with table of contents) on Friedrich Schröder's website
- ↑ Biography Sonja Ziemann