ORIGINAL PERFUMES WITH SIGNTURE FOR SALE

When Chanel No. 5 was released in 1921, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel became the first couturier [a high-end custom clothing maker who belongs to the French Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture Parisienne] to make her name world-renowned through a signature fragrance. With unmistakable synthetic ingredients and modern packaging, Chanel No. 5 became the most recognizable fragrance on the market. The fame of Chanel No. 5 began with its scent, the first to make bold use of synthetic aldehydes. Today Chanel No. 5 is part of the lexicon of fragrance that pervades American culture, but in 1921 it was an entirely novel smell.

The packaging design for No. 5 reflects the emerging ideas of modernity of the early 1920s. While perfume-making was not Coco Chanel’s specialization, the packaging design for No. 5 fit nicely into her fashion design repertoire. Chanel chose a man’s toiletry bottle, square and simple in shape, as the basis for the Chanel No. 5 bottle. Between 1921 and the present, only slight modifications have been made to the proportions of the bottle.

This simplicity lent No. 5 an ease of manufacture that other high-end fragrances could not achieve with their hand-painted labels, intricately molded bottles, and tassel bedecked cardboard boxes. With the straightforwardness of manufacture came the attendant effortlessness for copyists. They could easily procure white boxes and square
Chanel
c. 1930-1959
Gift of Annette Green
F2005.860.981AB