Why Chanel No. 5—Which is Celebrating 100 Years—is Hotter Than Ever
Is there any corner of God’s green earth where a flacon decorated with interlocking Cs and a single prime number does not bring forth sighs of desire and shrieks of delight? This year marks the 100th anniversary of Chanel No. 5, the revolutionary fragrance that is perhaps Coco Chanel’s most enduring confection—an ode to modernism in a bottle that laughs at the passage of time.
If every woman alive wants Chanel No. 5, it may be because from the start the scent represented a new woman—a person who flung off her corset, slipped into a little black dress, and fearlessly marched off to face the future. Its powerful allure may never be fully comprehended (like love, can it ever be completely understood?), but there are clues in the backstory.
Coco Chanel in the 1920s. Her style defined the decade. FPG Getty Images
The year is 1920. World War I has ended, flappers are beginning to bob their hair and roll up their stockings, and Coco Chanel is meeting with the French-Russian perfumer Ernest Beaux. She asks him to concoct a scent that isn’t sticky and floral and sweety-sweet, as so many were at the time. In short, she tells him, she wants a bouquet that evokes “the scent of a woman.” In a story straight out of a fairy tale, retold at an exhibit this year at the Palais Galliera in Paris, Beaux scours the planet, even supposedly traveling to the Arctic Circle, in search of ingredients that will bring to life Coco’s aromatic fantasy. He finds ylang-ylang in Comoros, tonka beans in Venezuela, sandalwood in New Caledonia, and, closer to home, rose de mai and jasmine, produced exclusively in Grasse, the perfume capital of the world. The all-important aldehydes that give the fragrance its legendary “clean” scent? To me, there’s a hint of arctic snow.
From these delicious elements Beaux whips up several candidates to lay at Chanel’s dainty feet—or, should we say, nostrils. As history has it, she selects the fifth sample, declaring that five is her lucky number—she showed her collections on the 5th of May, which is the fifth month of the year. And just to make sure that women get the point, she dispenses with the traditional perfume bottle, typically adorned with Belle Epoque blossoms, and introduces a vial whose austerity is an elegant homage to a symbol of the scientific method: the laboratory flask. Et voilà: Chanel, a pioneer in so many other ways, becomes the first fashion designer to brand her name as a fragrance, her scent ex machina an immediate staple.
Coco Chanel asked perfumer Ernest Beaux to put the “scent of a woman” in a bottle. Photographer Weegee took her up on the challenge. Weegee(Arthur Fellig)/International Center of Photography Getty Images
That was then. It doesn’t account for the hold this ageless centenarian still has on our imaginations. Like the multitude of petals on a rose de mai, the floral hybrid Beaux threw into the original formula (Rosa x centifolia to a botanist), there are a hundred reasons for No. 5’s staying power, but a few other interlocking Cs come to mind: confidence, conviction, change. And if the individual ingredients of this potion haven’t been fundamentally altered in 100 years, its perception has. By arriving first, No. 5 got under our skin and never left, a Promethean creation that set the standard for all that followed. From that moment on, there would be No. 5 and everybody else. That pedigree elicited the most captivating of aphrodisiacs: envy. We want what we believe to be the best, and we want to be the first to possess it.
And then there’s that elusive quality we once associated with movie stars: mystique. “Gabrielle Chanel wanted a fragrance that was built like a dress, both artificial and abstract, which gives it a mysterious dimension,” says Olivier Polge, Chanel’s in-house perfumer and resident nose. “There is always something in No. 5 that you cannot grasp.”
We cannot grasp it, perhaps, but who can blame us for trying? The truth is that it is the rare thing—in fashion, in culture, in life—that retains all its seductive modernity. Marilyn Monroe famously confessed in a 1952 interview that she wore “five drops of Chanel No. 5” and nothing else in bed, and can’t you just hear her say it in her breathy voice? It’s not just Monroe—the scent has been associated with women from Catherine Deneuve to Nicole Kidman. It has even ensnared a gentleman or two; Marlon Brando was said to be a fan, and Andy Warhol immortalized it in silkscreen in 1985. Who can forget Brad Pitt’s moody rhapsody in black-and-white in a series of ads in 2012?
Marilyn Monroe daps herself with Chanel No. 5 before attending a 1955 performance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Michael Ochs Archives Getty Images
To mark this centennial, Chanel has introduced a inspired by this perennial four-quadrant beauty, a task not without daunting challenges. How do you take something as ephemeral as smoke and translate it into precious works of wearable art? The collection plays with five distinct elements—the signature stopper, the geometric bottle, the numeral 5, the flowers at the center of the fragrance, and the invisible sillage—to evoke the soul of the scent, with one piece dripping diamonds that are meant to suggest droplets. The most thrilling specimen (not for sale) is a necklace that boasts a striking 55.55-carat custom-cut diamond befitting this rarest of milestones.
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“The difficulty was to even touch that icon. It’s a little intimidating. It’s risky,” says Patrice Leguéreau, director of Chanel’s Fine Jewelry Creation Studio. He wanted, he explains, “to be inspired, to celebrate, and to design something new—not just to reproduce the bottle but to touch its spirit.”
And isn’t that what we all want: a touch of magic? To wriggle into our Chanel frock, toss a cardigan over our shoulders, dab our wrists with this elegant miracle, and step out into the world as if on a higher plane. The ancient Greeks had a word for it: ekstasis, the sensation of being rapt outside oneself. Sometimes, all it takes is five little drops.
This story appears in the October 2021 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
Lynn Yaeger Lynn Yaeger writes about fashion and design and contributes regularly to The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vogue.
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Ice-T Defends His, Coco Austin’s Daughter Chanel’s Acrylic Nails
Brushing off the backlash. Ice-T was not fazed by criticism of his 5-year-old daughter Chanel’s acrylic nails.
“Rule one on the internet: Do not pay attention to anything anyone says on the internet,” the Law & Order: SVU star, 63, said during a Friday, October 1, appearance on The View when asked about the parenting police. “Worry about the people that walk up to you and say things in your real life. Those are the people you should be concerned with. The internet is the world. It’s the world talking, so I don’t pay attention.”
The New Jersey native added that “everybody parents differently” and “every house has its own constitution.” The rapper assured viewers of the ABC show that his and wife Coco Austin’s child is “loved” and “doing OK.”
Whoopi Goldberg hilariously chimed in, “Mind your business!”
Austin, 42, showed off Chanel’s fake nails ahead of school picture day last month. “For the special occasion, I let Chanel do mini tips to her nails,” the model wrote via Instagram on September 23. “I love doing her hair. My little doll baby is what I call her.”
The little one started kindergarten this year, and the Los Angeles native was very emotional amid the transition. Austin shared a video of herself crying in her car, asking, “How many moms can relate?”
The actress went on to post photos of the new student posing in her uniform. “This is a bittersweet day for me!” Austin wrote via Instagram. “I guess because Chanel won’t be with me every single breathing moment. She is my backbone and I feel empty without her. I knew this day would eventually come where she would start Kindergarten! Yeah, I was that mother that cried an hour after dropping her off in the car (and am still crying throughout the day).”
Austin has a close relationship with her daughter, exclusively telling Us Weekly in July that she “still” breast-feeds Chanel.
“It’s a big bonding moment for a mother and your child,” the former reality star explained at the time. “Why take that away from her? … If she doesn’t want it, all right, that’s where you stop it. But I’m not just going to say no.”
Ice-T defended his wife’s decision via Twitter at the time, “News Flash! We feed Chanel FOOD. She just likes to suck mom’s boob every now and then. Me Too!!! … News Flash! I’m still breast-feeding! Every chance I can.”
Ice-T defends 5-year-old daughter’s French tip nails
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Blocking out the haters.
Ice-T supports his wife Coco Austin’s decision to let their 5-year-old daughter Chanel wear French tip nails, saying that he just tunes out the naysayers online.
“Rule 1 on the internet: Do not pay attention to what anyone says,” the “Law and Order: SVU” star, 63, said on Thursday’s episode of “The View.” “Worry about the people that walk up to you and say things in your real life.”
“Those are the people you should be concerned with. The internet is the world. It’s the world talking, so I don’t pay attention.”
The rapper said he recognizes, though, that “everybody parents differently.”
“Like I said, every house has its own Constitution,” he added. “We’re doing OK. Our baby’s OK.”
Host Whooping Goldberg then passionately chimed in, “Mind yo business!”
“I always love when people say, ‘They say.’ Who’s they?” Ice-T asked. “The internet? I don’t pay attention to that.”
Earlier this week, some moms on social media had a frenzy over Chanel’s nails, showcased in an adorable picture from her first day of school.
“To [sic] young for nails!!!!! one person commented.
Another, pointing out how Chanel still breastfeeds, commented, “Tips for a 5 year old, but you still breastfeed her, come on … .just ridiculous.”
However, there were other people on social media that came to Austin’s defense.
“Her lil picture day nails cute,” one person said. “Regardless of what these ppl say. Folks love parenting other ppl kids.”
Another fan added, “Y’all are so judgmental! Worry about your own children and lives. This little girl is well taken care of, loved and blessed. Y’all go somewhere with all that negativity.”