This feminine perfume that smells like women, revolutionary in its composition, name and presentation, was born from the association between Gabrielle Chanel and perfumer Ernest Beaux. The first Chanel fragrance to be presented in a round bottle, Chance Eau de Toilette, was introduced in 2003, again created by Jacques Polge. The scent is floral and delicate, with jasmine and hyacinth as the protagonists, but these notes are complemented by a spicy touch underlying pink pepper and an attractive sweet core. Chanel's first fragrance, Chanel No.
Several apocryphal stories surround the creation of Chanel No. In the advertisement, all the bottles were indistinguishable from each other and showed all the available Chanel perfumes, numbers 9, 11 and 22, and the centerpiece of the line, No. Chanel may not have known that the Wertheimers, who had fled France to New York in 1940, had instituted a process by which the quality of Chanel No. In the early 1940s, when other perfume manufacturers were increasing their brand exposure, Parfums Chanel took the opposite path and reduced advertising.
Thomas's mission was to establish the mechanisms necessary to maintain the quality of Chanel products, in particular its most cost-effective fragrance, Chanel No. For this reason, more than a century after the brand launched its first composition, many people still perceive Chanel perfumes as the pinnacle of luxury perfumes. Chanel did not know that the Wertheimers, in anticipation of the coming Nazi seizures, had legally ceded, in May 1940, control of Parfums Chanel to a French Christian businessman and industrialist, Felix Amiot. They are only available in Chanel boutiques or on the Chanel website, or at Bergdorf Goodman, some Nordstrom stores (Seattle has them) and Saks.
It was a small advertisement for Parfums Chanel advertising the line of Chanel fragrances available at Bonwit Teller, a luxury department store. The stakes were high and Chanel was determined to take control of Parfums Chanel from the Wertheimers. At a time when perfumes captured the essence of a single flower, Gabrielle Chanel wanted to design something as complex as one of her dresses.
