Coco Chanel_ An Intimate Life - Lisa Chaney [105]
It was never imagined that they could become luxury fragrances for the general public . . . They must remain exclusive . . . chosen by an exclusive public with refined tastes.11
As with the alchemists, the Chanel client is enjoined to become part of a select, semisecret society, membership in which makes her exclusive. In the twenties, luxury perfumes were sold in bottles that were glassblowers’ “triumphs” of excess. Intended to signal the promise of the contents, they were in the shape of cupids, suggestive female figures, or were richly exotic, associating the perfume with the seductive mystery of the East.
The designer of the unmistakable Chanel N° 5 “simple bottles and cases adorned solely by their whiteness” is yet another mystery. In 1973, Gabrielle’s lawyer of many years, Robert Chaillet, said that she designed the bottle herself: “As soon as she had found her perfume . . . she designed something supremely simple and therefore supremely sophisticated . . . The bottle has never changed. There is total recognition. We can run a full-page advert in the most fashionable magazines simply by photographing the bottle. We need no explanatory text.”12 What would twenty-first-century advertisers give for this level of brand recognition?
Another story tells how the first bottles were made by a company called Brosse, and that they were a copy of one of Arthur Capel’s toiletry containers. A third story has it that in 1924, when Gabrielle would make a deal securing distribution of her perfumes, the bottle was designed by Jean, the son of the fashionable artist Paul Helleu. This story may be the correct one, for we know that Jean Helleu began working for Gabrielle in the twenties, and remained with the Chanel Company for the rest of his working life.
According to Gabrielle’s lawyer, following her choice from Beaux’s samples, Gabrielle dined that evening with friends in the largest restaurant in Cannes. With an atomizer of Chanel N° 5 on the table, she sprayed each person who walked past. “The effect was amazing. All the women who passed the table stopped, sniffing the air. We pretended not to notice.”13
Asking Beaux to bottle samples for her, Gabrielle is said to have returned to Paris with a hundred in her luggage. When clients were in the fitting rooms, her assistants sprayed the perfume around. Particularly privileged clients were given a little sample bottle of N° 5 as a present, and when Gabrielle was asked where it might be bought, she said she had just come upon it while away; she’d forgotten where. Meanwhile, she prodded Beaux for delivery of the larger quantities she had ordered, and was told that production could not be hurried. (To reiterate the beginning of this chapter, it is almost impossible that Dmitri introduced Gabrielle to Beaux in early 1921 and a few months later the perfume was in production.) Eventually, Beaux was ready. Gabrielle had by now cleverly drummed up sufficient interest among her clients that it appeared she was simply following their requests. In this way, Gabrielle now began selling small quantities of her perfume in all three of her salons, in Deauville, Biarritz and Paris.
A crucial element in the signature design of the Chanel N° 5 bottle is the small black letter C within a black circle set as the seal at the neck. On the top of the lid are two more Cs, intertwined back to back. We know from the little Chanel catalogue mentioned above that from at least 1924, the N° 5 bottles sported the unmistakable logo. While we can’t be certain who designed the minimalist art deco bottles for the perfume, the equally inspired piece of graphic design, the black letters CC, definitely originated with Gabrielle. It is of course correct that these two Cs refer to Gabrielle—in other words, to Coco Chanel herself, and would become the logo of the House of Chanel. But a discovery we made gives a possible additional meaning to these intertwined Cs.
Gabrielle was fascinated