Chanel No. 5 was the first perfume launched by French couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel in 1921. The scent formula for the fragrance was compounded by French-Russian chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux. The design of its bottle has been an important part of the product's branding. Coco Chanel was the first face of the fragrance, appearing in the advertisement published by Harper's Bazaar in 1937.
Inspiration
Traditionally, fragrances worn by women fell into two basic categories. "Respectable women" favored the essence of a single garden flower while sexually provocative indolic perfumes heavy with animal musk or jasmine were associated with women of the demi-monde, prostitutes, or courtesans. Chanel sought a new scent that would appeal to the flapper and celebrate the seemingly liberated feminine spirit of the 1920s.
The No. 5 name
At the age of twelve, Chanel was handed over to the care of nuns, and for the next six years spent a stark, disciplined existence in a convent orphanage, Aubazine, founded by 12th-century Cistercians in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of central France. From her earliest days there, the number five had potent associations for her. For Chanel, the number five was especially esteemed as signifying the pure embodiment of a thing, its spirit, its mystic meaning. The paths that led Chanel to the cathedral for daily prayers were laid out in circular patterns repeating the number five.
Her affinity for the number five co-mingled with the abbey gardens, and by extension the lush surrounding hillsides abounding with Cistus (rock roses).
In 1920, when presented with small glass vials containing sample scents numbered 1 to 5 and 20 to 24 for her assessment, she chose the fifth vial. Chanel told her master perfumer, Ernest Beaux, whom she had commissioned to develop a new fragrance, "I present my dress collections on the fifth of May, the fifth month of the year and so we will let this sample number five keep the name it has already, it will bring good luck."
Bottle design
Chanel envisioned a design that would be an antidote for the over-elaborate, precious fussiness of the crystal fragrance bottles then in fashion popularized by Lalique and Baccarat. Her bottle would be "pure transparency...an invisible bottle". It is generally considered that the bottle design was inspired by the rectangular beveled lines of the Charvet toiletry bottles, which, outfitted in a leather traveling case, were favored by her lover, Arthur "Boy" Capel. Some say it was the whiskey decanter he used that she admired and wished to reproduce in "exquisite, expensive, delicate glass".
The first bottle produced in 1922, differed from the Chanel No. 5 bottle known today. The original container had small, delicate, rounded shoulders and was sold only in Chanel boutiques to select clients. In 1924, when "Parfums Chanel" incorporated, the glass proved too thin to survive shipping and distribution. The bottle was modified with square, faceted corners, its only significant design change. In a 1924 marketing brochure, Parfums Chanel described the bottle as, "the perfection of the product forbids dressing it in the customary artifices. Why rely on the art of the glassmaker...Mademoiselle is proud to present simple bottles adorned only by...precious teardrops of perfume of incomparable quality, unique in composition, revealing the artistic personality of their creator." Others claim that the bottle's design was inspired by a whiskey bottle, while some say that the inspiration was drawn from glass pharmaceutical vials. In choosing the design for her perfume's bottle, was looking for something simple, even clinical, to stand apart from the overstated designs customarily seen on the perfume counter.
Unlike the bottle, which has remained the same since the 1924 redesign, the stopper has gone through numerous modifications. The original stopper was a small glass plug. The octagonal stopper, which became a brand signature, was created in 1924, when the bottle shape was changed. The 1950s gave the stopper a bevel cut and a larger, thicker silhouette. In the 1970s the stopper became even more prominent but, in 1986, it was re-proportioned so its size was more harmonious with the scale of the bottle.
The "pocket flacon," designed to be carried in a purse, was introduced in 1934. The price and container size were reduced to appeal to a broader customer base.
The bottle, over the decades, has itself become an identifiable cultural artifact, so much so that Andy Warhol chose to commemorate its iconic status in the mid-1980s with his pop art, silk-screened, Ads: Chanel.