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100 years of Chanel N°5

In 1929 it was the world's best-selling perfume, and today a bottle is still sold every 30 seconds: the iconic fragrance Chanel N°5 blows out a whopping 100 candles.Text: Larissa Schaule Jullens
Image: Chanel

May 5, 1929

Number five, created on the fifth of the fifth month. Gabrielle Chanel, founder of the French fashion house Chanel changed the perfume world forever on May 5, 1929. Gabrielle felt her maison could use a suitably luxurious fragrance. A fragrance that would typify the modern and free-spirited woman. Chanel was not the first couture house to release her own fragrance, but she was the first female couturier with her own perfume.

N°5: detail and perfection

Together with renowned perfumer Ernest Beaux, N°5 was created. Although a simple rose fragrance was very popular at the time, Gabrielle aimed for an exceptional scent that would not be comparable to any other perfume. Indeed, the designer - with her eye for detail and perfection - wanted a perfume that would be designed just like her handmade clothes. And she succeeded. Gabrielle created an extravagant and luxurious fragrance, but the look had to be conveyed in a minimalist way. The simpler, the more women could identify with the perfume. No creative or unusual name, just a number. For the design, Gabrielle took her inspiration from an apothecary bottle. The cap was designed on the shape of the geometric square Place Vendôme in Paris.

Iconic

It didn't take long for Chanel N°5 to become the world's best-selling perfume in 1929. American soldiers took it as a souvenir for their loved ones after World War II. Icon Marilyn Monroe was a fan of the perfume, and pop art artist Andy Warhol created a work of art from the bottle in 1985. In commercials during the Super Bowl, the perfume appeared in multiple commercials and celebrities such as Nicole Kidman and Brad Pitt were most recently the face of N°5. What other fragrance in the world has survived a pandemic, world war and economic crisis? Chanel N°5 is more than a perfume, it is history in a bottle.