For the first time, the legendary Chanel N°5 frees itself from its historic bottle and is presented in a reinvented limited edition. Between new issues and technical challenges, Iconic Business spoke with Sylvie Legastelois, creative director of Packaging and graphic identity at Chanel and leader of this audacious transformation.
The house of Chanel continues to surprise and innovate by launching a limited edition of its emblematic perfume, Chanel N°5. For the first time, this legendary fragrance frees itself from its traditional bottle and adopts a new design. To find out more about this reinterpretation of N°5 L’Eau, one of the variations of the original perfume, Iconic Business spoke with Sylvie Legastelois, director of packaging creation and graphic identity for Chanel.
In the world of perfumery, certain creations span the ages and carry, with them, true legends. This is the case of the legendary Chanel N°5.
Created in 1921 by Gabrielle Chanelthis fragrance aims to be radical, innovative and against the grain of the codes of its time. A true olfactory heritage, this creation is a certain idea of femininity, a monument of chic, transmitted from one generation to another. Driven by its irreverence, this perfume was also elevated to the rank of essential by the star Marylin Monroe who declared, in 1952, to sleep naked, simply “dressed” with a few drops of Chanel N°5. The legend was born.
“Inspired by the precious drop of this N°5 perfume that Marylin Monroe wore to sleep, the design of the bottle is deliberately refined”, explains Sylvie Legastelois.
“Just like No. 5, Marilyn Monroe has something universal and intimate at the same time,” Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur, director of creative resources for perfume and beauty at Chanel, also sums up to our colleagues at Vogue.
For Sylvie Legastelois, it was also, with this new setting, a question of creating a surprise:
“This avant-garde vision has always taken the N°5 perfume where we least expected it. Surprising, creating desire through new gestures was the starting point of this creation,” she confides to Iconic Business .
It all started here with a drawing then interpreted by volume models, in order to adjust the shape, the thickness of the glass, the design of the ring. Then, the final model was entrusted to the various glass and metal suppliers.
“Purity and simplicity”
An exchange of know-how and a partnership dear to Sylvie Legastelois:
“Such an achievement cannot be achieved without the valuable partnership with our glassmakers. This complicity allows us to push the limits of technology ever further. This work is possible thanks to everyone’s passion,” she emphasizes.
Minimalist, oval, transparent… This new interpretation of the bottle is a real challenge. Indeed, for this project, the challenge was both to respect the codes of N°5 but also and above all to innovate through an unexpected design.
“It’s a new way to discover this iconic perfume by going to the essential, to an absolute form that nestles in the hand. Purity and simplicity are the values carried by this perfume since its creation”, summarizes Sylvie Legastelois.
18 months of work and a technical challenge
On the technical side, the shape of this new setting has pushed the double C house to redouble its inventiveness. For good reason, the oval shape cannot be placed on the glassmaker’s mat like a flat-bottomed bottle. The supplier has therefore developed a specific process for holding this bottle at the time of its production.
“Fitting the metal ring on the neck of the bottle was a challenge. Then we had to adjust the cap on the bottle and ensure that it held in place for perfect alignment,” says the director of packaging creation and graphic identity of Chanelwho speaks of a “feat”.
It took 18 months of hard work and close collaboration between the internal teams of Chanel and its suppliers to produce this exceptional bottle.
If the bottle makes a radical change, the composition has also been reworked. Like an artisan jeweler, Olivier Polge, nose of the house of Chanel, has succeeded in establishing here a new harmony and an ideal of freshness.
He carefully examined the initial composition of “L’Eau”, one of the five variations of N°5, as one would disassemble a complex watch, and studied each ingredient to understand its essence. He highlighted the aldehydes with the scent of orange peel, while discarding those with metallic accents. He accentuated the liveliness of the zests and lightened the base notes. The woods were made more dynamic and the ylang-ylang greener. The jasmine was sublimated and the vanilla reduced.
By honoring the past while innovating, Olivier Polge and the house of Chanel have reinvented L’Eau N°5.
