Its name is universally renowned. Its wake, a revolution. Its bottle, an unmatched masterpiece. Created in 1921, N°5 is the best-known perfume in the world. The new episode of Inside CHANEL looks back over 100 years of celebrity.

From the start, N&deg;5 threw habits and conventions to the wind. At the beginning of the 1920s, Gabrielle Chanel had already changed people&rsquo;s views on fashion by suggesting a new allure. Her first perfume is consistent with her pioneering designs, simple yet well thought through. Revolutionary in its composition, N&deg;5 is also the first perfume imagined by a woman for women.

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Whether it be Marilyn Monroe turning it into a myth by confessing she only wore a few drops in bed, or Andy Warhol screen printing it as a pop art icon, over time N&deg;5 has acquired the status of a global cultural phenomenon. First perfume to be advertised on TV, it has inspired some of the greatest image masters &mdash; Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Ridley Scott, Jean-Paul Goude or Baz Luhrmann to name a few &mdash; and become a visual symbol that has never lost touch with the contemporary creative scene. Because the world&rsquo;s most popular perfume of all time needs adequate representation, it has chosen muses who, throughout the world, embody elegance and seduction without undermining their own personality: Catherine Deneuve, Carole Bouquet, Nicole Kidman or currently Marion Cotillard are among the ambassadresses who, by their spirit and modernity, lift N&deg;5 into the eternal feminine pantheon for posterity.

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Mythological status has never consigned N&deg;5 to museum shelves, even though it has been part of the permanent collections in the MoMA, New York, since 1954. Through its history, its image and its very essence N&deg;5 remains the backdrop to countless stories, even the most intimate. N&deg;5 is made for those who, like Mademoiselle Chanel, choose who they want to be, and become it. It is a perfume which, like a coat of invisible armor, gives the strength to face life. Backed with its 100 years of celebrity, N&deg;5 will always be one step ahead.

The New INSIDE CHANEL Chapter Dedicated to N°5

I am N&deg;5,&nbsp;an abstract perfume by Gabrielle Chanel, which she created in 1921 with Ernest Beaux, perfumer to the tsars.

I am a revolution,&nbsp;a defining new departure in the world of perfumery, which at a stroke made all the fashionable fragrances of the period seem old hat. Gabrielle Chanel came up with a perfume like no one had ever before imagined.

I am the avant-garde,&nbsp;emerging at the same time as cubism, dadaism, and surrealism. I am their olfactory counterpart, and like them, I break the codes; like them, I write a new language and invent a collage of scents. I am the first abstract perfume.

I am a manifesto,&nbsp;that of modernity, a dazzling bouquet. Mademoiselle boosted the jasmine, the ylang-ylang, and the rose, yet no single identifiable note is left in my wake. Thanks to the magical alchemy of the aldehydes, I throw people off the scent, not evoking any one flower, to become &ldquo;a woman&rsquo;s fragrance with the woman scent&rdquo;.

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I am a mystery,&nbsp;the best-known yet most enigmatic of perfumes. My formula is CHANEL&rsquo;s best- kept secret and the most successful fragrance in modern perfumery. This cloak of mystery has propelled me from celebrity to posterity.

I am a magic number,&nbsp;the 5, her favorite number which had brought her luck ever since childhood. Mademoiselle is said to have chosen N&deg;5 because it was the scent in the fifth sample, the one she preferred.

I am an emblem,&nbsp;a simple bottle in laboratory with sharp angles and crystalline transparency, and a stopper cut like a diamond evoking the Place Vend&ocirc;me. The ultimate, universal reference in the history of scent bottles. The imprimatur of CHANEL&rsquo;s triumph.

I am a symbol,&nbsp;which the G.I.s took back to America at the end of World War II as a souvenir of Paris and the taste of liberty, the badge of French chic, and the very essence of the CHANEL style.

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I am a modern myth,&nbsp;founded when Marilyn chose me as nightwear, confessing that she only wore a few drops of N&deg;5 in bed. A coming together of absolute femininity and absolute perfume.

I am an icon&nbsp;of the 20th&nbsp;century, the first perfume to enter the MoMA. The king of pop art, Andy Warhol, reproduced my bottle in a screen print.

I am a legend,&nbsp;timeless, continually reinventing myself, as in Verlaine&rsquo;s &ldquo;Familiar Dream&rdquo;: I am &ldquo;neither quite the same, nor altogether the other&rdquo;. From L&rsquo;Extrait to L&rsquo;Eau and from L&rsquo;Eau to Parfum.

I am an allegory&nbsp;of modernity, French elegance, and eternal femininity.&nbsp;I am the perfume of perfumes,&nbsp;embodied by the greatest celebrities.

For my anniversary, the world&rsquo;s most famous French actress, Marion Cotillard, took me dancing on the moon and left my imprint there.

For centuries yet to come...

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Discover the new episode of Inside CHANEL.com from March 19th, 2021.

www.InsideChanel.com 

#InsideChanel

The New INSIDE CHANEL Chapter Dedicated to N°5

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