4 “after the defeat of France,” writes one historian, “Germany received a supply of luxury goods such as she had not seen for years”: Marshall Dill, Germany: A Modern History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970).
5 It was $15,000–today worth a cool million dollars: Based on nominal GDP per capita.
6 in the United States she received only 10 percent of a 10 percent dividend: Galante, Mademoiselle Chanel, 198.
7 “It is monstrous,” she insisted. “They produced it in Hoboken!”: Abescat and Stavridès, “Derrière l’Empire Chanel,” 83; see also Kennett, Coco, 83.
8 “From Miami to Anchorage, from Naples to Berlin … next to milk chocolate”: Abescat and Stavridès, “Derrière l’Empire Chanel,” 83; also quoted in the official Chanel history of No. 5, François Ternon, Histoire du No. 5 Chanel: Un numéro intemporel (Nantes, France: Éditions Normant, 2009), 45.
9 In her private war with the Wertheimers, though, she now declared, “We need to get our weapons … and I have some!”: Abescat and Stavridès, “Derrière l’Empire Chanel,” 83.
10 she threatened to produce a scent simply called Mademoiselle Chanel No. 5: Madsen, Chanel, 268.
11 Just outside Zürich, for example, in the village of Dübendorf, a small perfumery called Chemische Fabrik Flora: Philip Kraft, personal correspondence, 2010.
12 He paid about five dollars each–more than sixty dollars a bottle in modern figures–for flasks: The notebooks, along with a collection of vintage perfumes, were sold in an auction in Britain during 2010 to an undisclosed buyer, and details here are based on photographic records from the sale; calculations based on consumer price index.
13 This mossy, green scent with jasmine and roses went on to become … “the celebrated No. 19” fragrance: Fiemeyer, Coco Chanel, 133. See also Angela Taylor, “Coco Left a Legacy–It’s Chanel No. 19,” New York Times, September 11, 1972, 46: “A few years before her death in 1971, Mlle. Chanel got a little bored with smelling like everyone else, according to H. Gregory Thomas, her good friend and chairman of Chanel, Inc. here. She wanted a perfume all her own. … It was numbered 19.” Named after Coco Chanel’s birth date, on August 19, it was based on the red-label formula and updated sometime after 1965 by Chanel’s perfumer Henri Robert, who added to it a recently discovered synthetic jasmine compound, Hedione. See Galante, Mademoiselle Chanel, 275.
14 “A perfume ought to punch you right on the nose”: Claude Delay, Chanel Solitaire (Paris: Gallimard, 1983), 88.
15 She boasted that it was the scent of Chanel No. 5–"but even better”: Galante, Mademoiselle Chanel, 193.
16 “When he came in,” the lawyer remembered, “I showed him the samples … “: Ibid.
17 “The suit asks that the French parent concern [Les Parfums Chanel] be ordered to cease manufacture …”: New York Times, June 3, 1946, 24.
18 eight million dollars–$240 million today”: Calculated using nominal GDP per capita.
19 Several sources speculate that it must have been Ernest Beaux: For the best discussion, see Kraft, Ledard, and Goutell, “From Rallet No. 1 to Chanel No. 5"; perfumer and fragrance historian Elena Vosnaki notes that it is a “violet-orris” with a structure that “is a common thread in Beaux creations”: private correspondence, 2009.
20 Gilberte Beaux, Ernest’s daughter-in-law is equally confident that he wasn’t the nose behind those fragrances, and her observation is also a good one: Gilberte Beaux, interview, 2010.
Mademoiselle Chanel No. 1 resembles Rallet No. 1, but no one could have confused it with Chanel No. 5 if they sniffed either appreciatively. While they have the floral heart in common, there is one crucially important difference. Unlike both Chanel No. 5 and Rallet No. 1, Mademoiselle Chanel No. 1 doesn’t have any aldehydes. Those scent materials transformed the world of perfumery in the 1920s, but they were no longer cutting edge in the late 1940s. The success of Chanel No. 5 meant that perfumers had readily incorporated these materials into their fragrances for several decades.
Instead of the aldehyde bouquet, the perfumer made a new innovation. Aldehydes might have become a familiar part of the scent idiom of the 1940s, but a-n-methyl ionone (alpha, nu; marketed by Givaudan as Raldeine A)–a synthetic compound with the unique scent of woody florals and orris butter–was still uncharted territory. It allowed perfumers, who could never have afforded to use large proportions of natural orris, a prohibitively expensive compound made naturally from the rhizome roots of iris flowers, to experiment with the full range of its aromas. Mademoiselle Chanel No. 1 used a-n-methyl ionone for nearly 25 percent of its entire formula. “As a result,” researchers have discovered, “Mademoiselle Chanel No. 1 becomes somewhat of a violet-orris modification of the Chanel No. 5 theme"; Kraft, et al., 46.
21 “If one took seriously the few disclosures that Mademoiselle Chanel allowed herself to make about those black years of the occupation”: Haedrich, Coco Chanel, 144.
22 Pierre Wertheimer’s worry was how “a legal fight might illuminate Chanel’s wartime activities and wreck her image–and his business”: Madsen, Chanel, 272; Phyllis Berman and Zina Sawaya, “The Billionaires Behind Chanel,” Forbes, April 3, 1989, 104.
23 Walter Schellenberg, one of the principal operatives in the failed diplomatic mission to Berlin: Fiemeyer, Coco Chanel, 136; the funds were paid in 1958.
24 “Pierre [Wertheimer],” he told Coco Chanel’s lawyer, “is standing here next to me”: Abescat and Stavridès, “Derrière l’Empire Chanel,” 82.
25 Parfums Chanel would give Coco Chanel $350,000–a sum today worth nearly nine million dollars: figures here and below based on nominal GDP per capita.
1 a light “boy-meets-girls” comic opera called Chanel No. 5: Composed by Friedrich Schröder, with lyrics by B. E. Lüthge and Günther Schwenn; Chanel No. 5 (Berlin: Corso, 1946). The operetta was obviously quite popular and well known, since a number of individual songs were printed separately, including “That Is the Smile with Tears” (“Das Ist das Lächeln der Tränen”), “In My Thoughts I Already Say ‘Du’ to You,” and “Tango Érotique.” Curiously, the story is not particularly focused on Chanel No. 5, despite the title. Instead, Chanel No. 5–as the most famous scent of a generation–stands in for a larger category of luxury French perfumes. The cover page depicts a large bottle of Chanel No. 5 with a woman beside it.
2 “We know the ladies … the blond and blue-black [haired] ones, the large and the slender ones”: Chanel No. 5, Berlin: Corso, 1946.
3 “based on a businessman’s passion for a woman who felt exploited by him”: Berman and Sawaya, “The Billionaires Behind Chanel,” 104.
4 “Pierre returned to Paris full of pride and excitement”: Ibid. There are divergent accounts of this story, however. See, for example, Galante, Les années Chanel, 188.
5 “Pierre,” she said, “let’s launch a new perfume” … “It’s too risky”: Ternon, Histoire du No. 5 Chanel, 45; Madsen, Chanel, 282.
6 he was now the only partner left at Les Parfums Chanel: Madsen, Chanel, 270.
7 offended at being taxed under French law as a “spinster,” she would even insist that Pierre Wertheimer pay her taxes: Galante, Mademoiselle Chanel, 151.
8 “Pierre Wertheimer, you see, had been one of those entreteneurs (like Balsan) of a type that no longer existed, whence Gabrielle’s attraction for him”: Charles-Roux, Chanel, 322; see also Edmonde Charles-Roux, L’Irrégulière, ou Mon Itinéraire Chanel (Paris: Grasset, 1994); and Edmonde Charles-Roux, Chanel and Her World (New York: Vendome, 2005).
9 “a man who had had many mistresses in his day, [and he] was used to paying women’s personal expenses …”: Charles-Roux, Chanel, 322.
10 She lived in a simply decorated room at the Ritz Hotel and took to writing … a book of aphorisms that she imagined one day publishing: Ann Brower tells of seeing the notebook during an interview with Coco Chanel in 1954; she recalls it as being approximately 6” x 4” and blue. When Brower had resigned a modeling position with the designer, sh
e was asked in for an interview, and Coco Chanel asked her what she wanted to be. Brower replied that she wanted to be a writer, and Chanel told her, “I am a writer, too” and showed her the book.
11 The reality, however, is that Warhol didn’t create the Chanel No. 5 silk screens until the mid-1980s: My thanks to Matt Wrbican and Tresa Varner, at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, for their assistance in dating this work.
12 “removed from their conventional context of advertising and sales” and selected “ for excellence”: The Package, The Museum of Modern Art, 1959, catalog, 27:1 (Fall 1959), 24.
13 “This is a most sophisticated use of bold black lettering on a white ground”: The Package, 19.
14 In the fifteen years from 1940 to 1955, the gross national product in the United States … soared 400 percent: Richard Shear, “The Package Design: A Leading or Trailing Indicator, 1950–1960,” October 14, 2009, http://richardshear.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/package-design-a-leading-or-trailing-indicator-1950–1960/.
15 For the first time “The package became an independent communicator of its own brand personality”: Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay, 1957), 19–20.
16 Americans threw themselves into the pleasures of material comforts and cozy domesticity: Donica Belisle, “Suburbanization and Mass Culture in North America,” History Cooperative Journal 57 (Spring 2006), www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/57/belisle.html.
17 Writes one historian, “In 1955, $9,000,000,000 was poured into United States advertising … A cosmetics tycoon, probably mythical, was quoted as saying, ‘We don’t sell lipstick, we buy customers’ “: Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 21.
18 “any product not only must be good but must appeal to our feelings”: Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 32.
19 One 1950s advertiser claimed, “Infatuation with one’s own body … and sex [were] now used differently to sell products”: Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 84.
20 “A perfume is different on different women because every woman has a skin chemistry all her own”: To a limited extent, perfumes do smell differently on the skin of individual people. Scientists have suspected that the rate at which a scent diffuses on our skin and the way it is perceived by others is influenced by everything from skin hydration and body temperature to the effect of our diet and the depth of our wrinkles. The differences, however, are largely overstated. The primary factors in how a scent unfolds on our bodies turn out to be simply room temperature and a perfume’s concentration. This means that the effect of our skin’s unique chemistry is actually minimal and limited to the first few moments of the experience–the appreciation of those fleeting top notes. So two friends comparing the scent of a perfume on their skin at a department-store beauty counter might notice a distinction at the moment of application. The friend with the oilier skin will find that the scent does last longer. Fifteen minutes later, however, the differences between how it smells on one arm or another literally start to evaporate. Unless you are applying Chanel No. 5 a couple of times an hour, no one will be getting “your” unique impression. Since fine fragrances at the perfume strength are designed to last five or six hours (and will often last much longer if applied to skin that is well moisturized), such frequent application would be expensively overpowering. See R. Schwarzenback and L. Berteschi, “Models to Assess Perfume Diffusion from Skin,” International Journal of Cosmetic Science 23 (2001): 85–98; 85, 92.
21 Chanel No. 5 was the first fragrance ever advertised on television: Chanel archives.
22 “Nothing but a few drops of Chanel No. 5”: in Haedrich, Coco Chanel, 177.
23 Marilyn Monroe said about that interview, “People are funny”: Marilyn Monroe then went on to explain to the interviewer: “Someone once asked me, ‘What do you wear in bed? Pajama tops? Bottoms? Or a nightgown?’ So I said, ‘Chanel No. 5.’ Because it’s the truth. You know, I don’t want to say ‘nude,’ but … it’s the truth"; see Kremmel, ed., Marilyn Monroe and the Camera, 15, quoting a 1960 interview with Marie Claire editor George Belmont.
24 For some reason, the fashion for Chanel No. 5 was fading: Madsen, Chanel, 282.
25 Even more important, “In France, in Europe, in the United States, the sales outlets exploded”: Abescat and Stavridès, “Derrière l’Empire Chanel,” 78.
26 With the expansion, “the price [of a bottle] went lower, lower, lower”: Ibid.
1 idea behind pop art was to use mass-cultural imagery playfully: See Princeton Museum of Art, Pop Art: Contemporary Perspectives (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 10, 100. Also Jean-Michel Vecchiet, dir., Andy Warhol, L’Oeuvre Incarnée: Vies et Morts de Andy Warhol, France Télévisions, 2005 (film).
2 “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art”: Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (New York: Mariner Books, 1977), 92.
3 In her book Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster”: Dana Thomas, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster (New York, Penguin, 2007).
4 While Jacques was, by all accounts, brilliant at raising racehorses: For the best discussion, see Abescat and Stavridès, “Derrière l’Empire Chanel.”
5 Coco Chanel simply called him “the kid”: Jocelyn de Moubray, “Jacques Wertheimer” (obituary), The Independent, February 10, 1996, www.independent. co.uk/news/people/obituaryjacques-wertheimer-1318229.html.
6 Jasmine production was in decline: For details in this paragraph, see “Business Abroad: King of Perfume,” Time, September 14, 1953.
7 “Chanel dominated the Paris fashion world …”: “Chanel, the Couturier, Dead in Paris,” New York Times, January 11, 1971.
8 “It was,” the column read … : Ibid.
9 share in the all-important American market had slipped to under 5 percent: “Chanel S.A. Company History,” Funding Universe, www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Chanel-SA-Company-History.html.
10 “Chanel was dead. … Nothing was happening”: Thomas, Deluxe, 150.
11 “From the age of eighteen, when he first joined Chanel, [Jacques Helleu] focused his efforts on turning the signature black-and-white packaging"–and especially the trademark bottle–"into a universally recognized brand”: Laurence Benaïm, Jacques Helleu and Chanel (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2006), 8.
12 Marilyn Monroe, as the perfume critic Tania Sanchez puts it, wore Chanel No. 5 because it was sexy: Turin and Sanchez, Perfumes, 260.
13 there on the cover of Look magazine, he read the caption “Most Beautiful Woman in the World”: Chanel archives.
14 “Chanel,” Laurence Benaïm has perceptively noted, “chooses its models as carefully as any harvest of May roses or jasmine from Grasse”: Benaïm, Jacques Helleu and Chanel, 8.
15 Best remembered today are Chanel No. 5 shorts such as La Piscine (1979), L’invitation au rêve (1982), Monument (1986), and La Star (1990): For a detailed account of the advertising films, see Ternon, Histoire du Chanel No. 5 Chanel, 133 ff. Information here and below supplied by Chanel archives.
16 Only a “handful of major brands–Hermès and Chanel in particular–strive to maintain and seem to achieve true luxury,” Thomas claims. “The quality …”: Thomas, Deluxe, 323.
17 Many credit this revitalization of Chanel during the 1970s to the new, energetic leadership of Pierre’s grandson, Alain Wertheimer: See, for example, Madsen, Chanel, 334; Thomas, Deluxe, 150.
18 fragrances “based on the complicated trajectory of the founder’s difficult and flamboyant life … scents she cherished, outdoors and at home”: Allure, February 2007, 178.
19 According to Polge, it is the scent of Chanel No. 5: Jacques Polge, Chanel, interview, 2009.
1 “Rules put famous perfumes ‘at risk'” and “Allergen rules may alter scents of great perfumes”: Chris Watt, “Rules Put Famous Perfumes ‘At Risk,’ “ The Herald (Glasgow), September 25, 2009, 3; Basil Katz, “Allergen Rules May Alter Scents of Great Perfumes,” Reuters wire service, September 24, 2009, www. reuters.com/article/idUS
TRE58N3LQ20090924?pageNumber=1&virtualB randChannel=11604; and Geneviève Roberts, “The Sweet Smell of Success.”
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