«A woman should wear perfume wherever she wishes to be kissed», said Gabrielle Chanel in 1921, while she created the fragrance that would have become the best sold and most beloved of all time. Passionate, complicated, precious as she was and as all women are, the formula of N°5 is the masterpiece of the designer that miraculously preserves its original charm as years go by and fashion changes. What is the secret of Chanel N°5? Today, 5/5/2015 we’ll show you 5 of them in a gallery featuring its most famous testimonials who contributed to making it immortal.
1. Its very first testimonial was Mademoiselle. In 1937, Gabrielle Chanel was photographed by François Kollar in her suite at the Ritz for a Harper’s Bazaar’s campaign.
2. The name N°5 comes from its formula contained in the fifth of 5 bottles that the perfumer Ernest Beaux suggested to Coco for her fragrance. It wasn’t just its notes that made Gabrielle choose that one bottle: 5 was in fact a particularly favourable number according to numerology, which Mademoiselle knew well since her love Boy Chapel was an enthusiast of the subject.
3. The bottle, designed by Gabrielle Chanel, did not stay exactly the same, undergoing slight changes during the years. 5 to be exact!
4. Two of the ingredients which comprise its formula, Grasse Jasmine and May Rose, are very rare and cultivated only in that specific area of France. In order to guarantee their survival, Chanel has made agreements with local growers and even started to grow its own rose fields exclusively to make its concentrates.
5. In 1945, at the end of the war, N°5 was the most purchased gift from US soldiers to their wives, gathering long lines outside the rue Cambon boutique.
Would you like to discover more secrets? Look at the video under the gallery!
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- Gabrielle Chanel, first testimonial for her own fragrance
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- Catherine Deneuve, testimonial in 1972
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- Carol Bouquet, testimonial in 1996
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- Marilyn Monroe was one of the biggest fan of N°5. In 1995 Chanel use a pic of her as adv
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- Nicole Kidman, testimonial in 2004 photographed by Baz Luhrmann
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- Nicole Kidman, testimonial in 2005 with pics by Patick Demarchelier
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- Nicole Kidman in 2006, again by Patrick Demarchelier
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- Audrey Tautou is the protagonist of 2009 campaign
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- Gisele Bunchen in the 2015 campaign
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- Gisele in the new campaign