A deep dive into one of the world's most iconic fragrances:
Author:Sara IdacavageUpdated:Oct 16, 2018Original:Nov 14, 2016Welcome to Fashion History Lesson, in which we dive deep into the origin and evolution of the fashion industry's most influential and omnipresent businesses, icons, trends and more.
So, considering the brand takes pride in the paradoxes and mythical nature of the perfume, what parts of the history of Chanel No. 5 are real? From what historians have uncovered, the real story is complicated and controversial. Here, we take a look at just some of the factors that have contributed to the perfume's unprecedented success — and the paradoxes that defined the woman behind it.
Traditionally, respectable women wore perfumes that smelled like singular flowers while courtesans and other racy ladies stuck to more brazen smells such as musk or jasmine to attract men.
Although the perfume was featured in glamorous advertisements throughout the 1940s and 1950s, using taglines like "Every Woman Alive Loves Chanel No. 5," perhaps the most iconic campaign featured Catherine Deneuve in the 1970s. Shot by Richard Avedon, the advertisement is as minimal as the perfume packaging itself, featuring nothing but the French actress's name and face along with the perfume bottle.
An opportunity to seize control presented itself at the onset of World War II, when the fragrance was being manufactured in Hoboken, NJ using materials imported from France. Since the Wertheimer brothers were a Jewish family, their business and ownership was susceptible to Nazi seizure. In 1941, Chanel supposedly wrote to German officials in an attempt to use her "Aryan" position as a way to regain sole ownership of her fragrance line from "the property of Jews.
The Chanel brand itself is remarkably good at telling stories that reinforce Mademoiselle’s Chanel's mythical aura. They've even released a video titled "The Self-Portrait of a Perfume," where the narrator says, "I am a consciousness, a way of walking, of thinking, of dreaming, of being true to one's self.
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