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Neuilly, in the western outskirts of Paris, just at the point where Haussmann's boulevards give way to the glittering skyscrapers of La Defence, may be smart, but it's not the most obvious home for a brand with the stature of Chanel. It is here, though, that the fragrance and beauty arm of that label resides, in a surprisingly unassuming bronze and glass structure boasting neither signage nor logo.
Inside, it is a rather different story. Entirely clad in black and beige - Coco Chanel's chosen colours - from the cool marble floors and imposing pilasters to the simple but reassuringly expensive leather furniture, and even the two-tone uniform twin-sets of staff seated in reception, it is all quintessentially Chanel.
Take a lift to the penthouse, and it's all change once again, this time to a bright, predominantly white interior dominated by walls of window on all four sides, overlooking the rooftops of Paris, and flooded with diffuse, early autumn light. It is here that Chanel's master perfumer for 30 years, Jacques Polge, presides over his olfactory empire, which remains the most successful of its kind in the world.
Polge, only the third generation of in-house perfumers at Chanel, is not only guardian and curator of bestselling fragrances including Cristalle, No 19 and, most famous of all, No 5, he is also the creator of Coco, Coco Mademoiselle, Antaeus, Chance, Allure and, most recently, Les Exclusifs, a line available only in Chanel boutiques and featuring reissued scents first introduced by the grande dame herself, and all-new ones each inspired by and named after the minutiae of her well-documented life.
"Would you like to see the lab?" asks Polge, an elegant and sprightly man in his early 60s, known by his entourage simply as "le nez".
The impossibly luxurious components that go into the creation of some of the world's most extraordinary fragrances are housed in cabinets lining the walls and in a central rotating glass cylinder. There are hundreds of tiny, vivid-blue bottles "Because blue is a beautiful colour, but also because it protects against the sun's rays," says Polge.
In this relatively small room, Chanel's most precious essences are preserved, and new formulas developed. .
Today, the positively uplifting scent of orange zest fills the air. "Quite possibly," Polge says, somewhat conspiratorially. We are here today to talk about Eau Premiere, the first new concentration of Chanel No 5 to be released on to the market for more than 20 years. Given that around 600 new fragrances are introduced annually, that makes it quite an event in itself. Like its magnificent antecedent, Chanel No 5, first given to the world in 1921, is still among the most complex and, indeed, modern fragrances ever created. It comes in a rectangular bottle stamped with simple black lettering, though it is longer and leaner, and the perfume is almost clear, rather than the original's amber.
Unlike many other great scents, the original Chanel No 5 has never been reinterpreted for a supposedly more contemporary audience. For all those who love it - it is estimated that a bottle is sold every 55 seconds somewhere in the world - great pains are taken to ensure that it smells just as it did when launched, which is no mean feat. However, new versions of the scent have been introduced, the last of these, also courtesy of Polge, was Eau de Parfum back in the 1980s.
"For us, you know, Chanel No 5 never needed to be revamped," Polge explains, refusing, with some diplomacy, to be drawn on the 2003 reworking of Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, to name just one, which left its core audience bewildered, even bereft. Before Polge arrived at Chanel, he was, coincidentally, co-creator of Rive Gauche. This, of course, was the most emblematic scent of the 1970s, in much the same way as the rather less successful Obsession by Calvin Klein dominated the 80s.
Chanel No 5, though, has stood the test of time far better than either of these. "No 5 has always been a very alive perfume in the company," Polge continues. "It is our job to protect the creation, and we make all types of effort in order that it remains the same. Every time there is a change in fashion or in women's habits of using perfume, instead of altering what already exists, we launch a new product. First came Eau de Toilette, then there was Eau de Parfum, and very soon there will be Eau Premiere.
"Eau Premiere is for all those women who came to me and said, 'No 5 is fantastic but it's not for me'. [It] is lighter, more transparent, but, in essence, it is still No 5.
As perhaps befits the world's most legendary fragrance, the truth and mythology surrounding the creation of Chanel No 5 are entangled. It is believed that Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel was introduced to the fragrance's creator, Ernest Beaux, perfumer to the Russian court, by her lover, the Grand Duke Dmitri Romanov, who escaped revolutionary Russia with the chemist to settle in Biarritz in 1920.
Just as Chanel's desire was to give women a stylish and contemporary
uncluttered wardrobe that was a million miles away from the furbelows and frills of the belle epoque, so she aimed to revolutionise perfume. The scents that came before Chanel No 5 were heavy, single-note florals, packaged in, to her pioneering mind, overdecorated bottles that did little, if anything, to advertise the importance of the juice within.
"The perfumes that were around before No 5 related precisely to specific flowers," Polge explains. "There was jasmine, rose, gardenia, lily of the valley ... For me, No 5 was the first perfume that used flowers, lots of flowers, but that didn't immediately relate to one in particular."
In other words, Chanel No 5 was the world's first abstract fragrance, as signposted by its very name, a number - Chanel's lucky number according to folklore - rather than anything more obviously feminine or even just evocative.
The secret to No 5's intentionally elusive nature, and to the fact that, almost 90 years after its inception, it remains almost impossible to pin down is, in fact, scientific more than poetic. This was the first fragrance to make use of synthetically replicated molecules taken from products of natural origin called aldehydes.
While Chanel had no problem with the use of synthetics - she famously, for example, mixed costume jewellery with the real thing, considering that to be a signifier of modernity - today we react badly to the introduction of chemicals to any product, from fragrance to food, erroneously believing that they are a cheap and allergenic substitute for the real thing. Often, just the opposite is the case.
As Polge himself puts it: "People don't understand the word 'synthetic'. Usually, any so-called synthetic product has its roots in a natural product. Taking an ingredient that is a very tiny part of the natural product and synthesising it allows us to give nuances that we couldn't before... Then there are natural products that don't smell good and are cheap, like citronella [used to repel insects and bring dogs into line] and lemon grass [the staple ingredient of often foul-smelling detergents]. there are synthetic products that smell very good and are extremely expensive."
One such product is the aldehyde C10. Polge offers a drop of it to me on a paper stick, and the aforementioned aroma of oranges that smell better than even nature intended is immediately apparent. A second stick is more peculiar and difficult to identify, though still bizarrely appealing. "It smells clean," I say. "Clean is an important word," replies Polge charitably, before adding: "It smells like the steam rising from a cotton shirt that is being ironed." And that, of course, is precisely what it smells like, and demonstrates, perhaps, why a nose is a nose in the first place, and the rest of us are mere amateurs by comparison.
In 1987, faithful to its intention to stay true to the character of its original scent, Chanel signed a contract with the Mul family in Grasse, who now work exclusively for the company producing the finest flowers of their kind. This shrewd move not only keeps the French tradition of flower cultivation for fragrance alive, but also ensures that No 5, and Parfum No 5, the original and most exclusive concentration in particular, remains exactly the same.
If so much time and effort is involved in ensuring that Chanel No 5 is the most enduringly successful fragrance in history, there is, of course, more to its spectacular longevity than the juice itself. The Chanel No 5 bottle, altered only minimally since first designed by Chanel herself, is by now as recognisable a part of contemporary culture as Coca-Cola.
Then, of course, there are the many "faces" of No 5. The original of these was Chanel herself. Although Marilyn Monroe was never actually signed up by Chanel, she helped to establish No 5's allure, famously declaring that "a few drops of No 5" was the only thing she wore in bed. Since that time, some of the world's most beautiful women have represented the fragrance, including the French actresses Catherine Deneuve, and Carole Bouquet. More recently, Nicole Kidman became the first Hollywood superstar to promote No 5. From next year, Audrey Tautou, currently filming the lead in Coco and Igor, documenting the love affair between Chanel and Stravinsky, will assume the mantle.
In the end, though, no amount of marketing can justify the unparalleled supremacy of this fragrance, which, as Polge puts it, is ultimately attributable to the fact that "it smells good".
If Chanel No 5 were a book, I ask him, what would it be? "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," he replies.
And a painting? "It makes me think of Titian," he says. "Venice was very important to Chanel." And a film? "Francois Truffaut's Baises Voles." A piece of music? "Mozart's Concerto for Clarinet," Polge says, barely pausing for thought.
Finally, I wonder, if Chanel No 5 were an animal, what would it be?
"That's easy. It would be a lion."
And that lion continues to roar.
- INDEPENDENT
