Chanel No. 5
Chanel No. 5 is the first perfume launched by French couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel in 1921. The scent formula for the fragrance was compounded by French-Russian chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux. The design of its bottle has been an important part of the product's branding. Coco Chanel was the first face of the fragrance, appearing in the advertisement published by Harper's Bazaar in 1937.
Inspiration
Traditionally, fragrances worn by women fell into two basic categories.Respectable women favored the essence of a single garden flower while sexually provocative indolic perfumes heavy with animal musk or jasmine were associated with women of the demi-monde, prostitutes, or courtesans. Chanel sought a new scent that would appeal to the flapper and celebrate the seemingly liberated feminine spirit of the 1920s.
The No. 5 name
At the age of twelve, Chanel was handed over to the care of nuns, and for the next six years spent a stark, disciplined existence in a convent orphanage, Aubazine, founded by 12th-century Cistercians in the Corrèze department of south-west France. From her earliest days there, the number five had potent associations for her. For Chanel, the number five was especially esteemed as signifying the pure embodiment of a thing, its spirit, its mystic meaning. The paths that led Chanel to the cathedral for daily prayers were laid out in circular patterns repeating the number five.Her affinity for the number five commingled with the abbey gardens, and by extension the lush surrounding hillsides abounding with Cistus.
In 1920, when presented with small glass vials containing sample scents numbered 1 to 5 and 20 to 24 for her assessment, she chose the fifth vial. Chanel told her master perfumer, Ernest Beaux, whom she had commissioned to develop a new fragrance, "I present my dress collections on the fifth of May, the fifth month of the year and so we will let this sample number five keep the name it has already, it will bring good luck."
Bottle design
Chanel envisioned a design that would be an antidote for the over-elaborate, precious fussiness of the crystal fragrance bottles then in fashion popularized by Lalique and Baccarat. Her bottle would be "pure transparency...an invisible bottle". It is generally considered that the bottle design was inspired by the rectangular beveled lines of the Charvet toiletry bottles, which, outfitted in a leather traveling case, were favored by her lover, Arthur "Boy" Capel. Some say it was the whiskey decanter he used that she admired and wished to reproduce in "exquisite, expensive, delicate glass".The first bottle produced in 1922 differed from the Chanel No. 5 bottle known today. The original container had small, delicate, rounded shoulders and was sold only in Chanel boutiques to select clients. In 1924, when "Parfums Chanel" incorporated, the glass proved too thin to survive shipping and distribution. The bottle was modified with square, faceted corners, its only significant design change. In a 1924 marketing brochure, Parfums Chanel described the bottle as, "the perfection of the product forbids dressing it in the customary artifices. Why rely on the art of the glassmaker...Mademoiselle is proud to present simple bottles adorned only by...precious teardrops of perfume of incomparable quality, unique in composition, revealing the artistic personality of their creator." Others claim that the bottle's design was inspired by a whiskey bottle, while some say that the inspiration was drawn from glass pharmaceutical vials. In choosing the design for her perfume's bottle, Chanel was looking for something simple, even clinical, to stand apart from the overstated designs customarily seen on the perfume counter.
Unlike the bottle, which has remained the same since the 1924 redesign, the stopper has gone through numerous modifications. The original stopper was a small glass plug. The octagonal stopper, which became a brand signature, was created in 1924, when the bottle shape was changed. The 1950s gave the stopper a bevel cut and a larger, thicker silhouette. In the 1970s the stopper became even more prominent but, in 1986, it was re-proportioned so its size was more harmonious with the scale of the bottle.
The "pocket flacon," designed to be carried in a purse, was introduced in 1934. The price and container size were reduced to appeal to a broader customer base.
The bottle, over the decades, has itself become an identifiable cultural artifact, so much so that Andy Warhol chose to commemorate its iconic status in the mid-1980s with his pop art, silk-screened, Ads: Chanel.
A limited-edition, crimson red crystal glass bottle in the three editions of Chanel No. 5, namely Eau de Parfum, Parfum, and L'Eau, was launched for Christmas in 2018.
Battle for control of Parfums Chanel
In 1924, Chanel agreed with the Wertheimer brothers Pierre and Paul, directors of the perfume house Bourjois, creating a new corporate entity, Parfums Chanel. The Wertheimers agreed to manage the production, marketing, and distribution of Chanel No. 5. The Wertheimers would receive a 70 percent share of the company, and Rheophile Bader, founder of the Paris department store Galeries Lafayette, would receive 20 percent. Bader had been instrumental in brokering the business connection by introducing Chanel to Pierre Wertheimer at the Longchamps races in 1922. For 10 percent of the stock, Chanel licensed her name to Parfums Chanel. She removed herself from involvement in all business operations. Later, unhappy with the arrangement, Chanel worked for more than twenty years to gain full control of Parfums Chanel. She said that Pierre Wertheimer was "the bandit who screwed me."World War II brought with it the Nazi seizure of all Jewish-owned property and businesses, providing Chanel with the opportunity to gain control of Parfums Chanel and its most profitable product, Chanel No. 5. The Wertheimers were Jewish, and Chanel used her position as an "Aryan" to petition German officials to legalize her right to sole ownership.
On 5 May 1941, Chanel wrote to the government administrator charged with ruling on the disposition of Jewish financial assets. Her grounds for proprietary ownership were based on the claim that Parfums Chanel "is still the property of Jews" and had been legally "abandoned" by the owners.
I have an indisputable right of priority … the profits that I have received from my creations since the foundation of this business … are disproportionate … you can help to repair in part the prejudices I have suffered in the course of these seventeen years.
Chanel was not aware that the Wertheimers, anticipating the forthcoming Nazi confiscations, had, in May 1940, legally turned control of Parfums Chanel over to a Christian, French businessman and industrialist Félix Amiot. At the end of World War II, Amiot returned Parfums Chanel to the Wertheimers.
Chanel maneuvers for control
By the mid-1940s, the worldwide sales of Chanel No. 5 amounted to nine million dollars annually. The monetary stakes were high, and Chanel was determined to wrest control of Parfums Chanel from the Wertheimers. Chanel planned to destroy customer confidence in the brand and tarnish its image, crippling its marketing and distribution. She stated that Chanel No. 5 was no longer the original fragrance created by "Mademoiselle Chanel," it was no longer being compounded according to her standards, and what was now being offered to the public was an inferior product that she could no longer endorse. Further, Chanel announced she would make available an authentic Chanel No. 5, to be named "Mademoiselle Chanel No. 5", offered to a group of select clients.Chanel may have been unaware that the Wertheimers, who had fled from France to New York in 1940, had instituted a process whereby the quality of Chanel No. 5 would not be compromised. In America, the Wertheimers had recruited H. Gregory Thomas as a European emissary for Parfums Chanel. Thomas' mission was to establish the mechanisms required to maintain the quality of Chanel products, particularly its most profitable fragrance, Chanel No. 5. Thomas worked to ensure that the supply of key components, the oils of jasmine and tuberose, obtained exclusively from the fields of the valley of Siagne above the French town of Grasse, remained uninterrupted by war. Thomas was later promoted to position as president of Chanel US, a position he held for thirty-two years.
Chanel escalated her game plan by instigating a lawsuit against Parfums Chanel and the Wertheimers. The legal battle garnered wide publicity. The New York Times reported on 3 June 1946:
The suit asks that the French parent concern be ordered to cease manufacture and sale of all products bearing the name and restore to her the ownership and sole rights over the products, formulas and manufacturing process "inferior quality".
The Wertheimers were aware of Chanel's collaboration during the Nazi occupation. Forbes magazine summarized the Wertheimers' dilemma: " a legal fight might illuminate Chanel's wartime activities and wreck her image—and his business".
Ultimately, the Wertheimers and Chanel came to an agreement, re-negotiating the original 1924 contract. On 17 May 1947, Chanel received her share of the wartime profits of Chanel No. 5. Post-war, her share was two percent of all Chanel No. 5 sales worldwide. Her earnings were in the vicinity of US$25 million a year, making her at the time one of the richest women in the world. The new arrangement also gave Chanel the freedom to create new scents, which would be independent of Parfums Chanel, with the proviso that none would contain the number 5 in its name. She never acted on this opportunity.
Advertising and marketing
1920s and 1930s
Chanel's initial marketing strategy was to generate buzz for her new fragrance by hosting a promotional event. She invited a group of elite friends to dine with her in an elegant restaurant in Grasse where she surprised and delighted her guests by spraying them with Chanel No. 5. The official launch place and date of Chanel No. 5 was in her boutique in the fifth month of the year, on the fifth day of the month: 5 May 1921. She infused the shop's dressing rooms with the scent, and she gave bottles to a select few of her high society friends. The success of Chanel No. 5 was immediate. Chanel's friend Misia Sert exclaimed: "It was like a winning lottery ticket."Parfums Chanel was the corporate entity established in 1924 to run the production, marketing, and distribution of the fragrance business. Chanel wanted to spread the sale of Chanel No. 5 from beyond her boutiques to the rest of the world. The first new market was New York City. The initial marketing was discreet and deliberately restricted. The first ad appeared in The New York Times on 16 December 1924. It was a small ad for Parfums Chanel announcing the Chanel line of fragrances available at Bonwit Teller, an upscale department store. In the ad, all the bottles were indistinguishable from each another, displaying all the Chanel perfumes available, Numbers 9, 11, 22, and the centerpiece of the line, No. 5. This was the extent of the advertising campaign in the 1920s and appeared only intermittently. In the US, the sale of Chanel No. 5 was promoted at perfume counters in high-end department stores. The Galeries Lafayette was the first retailer of the fragrance in Paris. In France itself, Chanel No. 5 was not advertised until the 1940s.
The first solo advertisement for Chanel No. 5 ran in The New York Times on 10 June 1934.