Wander Luxe
Three new summer fragrances capture the stories of Chanel, with freshness, romance, and originality. Natasha Kraal speaks with perfume creator Olivier Polge on his new collection.
Paris is always a good idea, even on this freezing February morning as I cut through grey slush at the famous crossroads of Faubourg-SaintHonoré, wet snow and wild wind in my face, towards Chanel’s exquisite fine jewellery boutique at Place Vendôme. I had been waiting for this interview with Olivier Polge since he joined Chanel as its perfume creator in 2013 so a few icy skids in heeled boots were a minor detail. The city was in fashion limbo, catching its breath after the dreamy extravagance of haute couture in January and frenetic Paris Fashion Week in March; that effervescent air now hung heavy with winter melancholia, and back to looking monochromatic without the vibrant fashion set ’gramming the streets. Heavy glass doors and layers of winter clothes later, I was ushered three floors up into a signature Chanelstyle room—black lacquered table, beige carpeting, fresh lilies, bronze sculptures, and Coromandel screen, one from Gabrielle Chanel’s impressive collection of 32—for this exclusive embargoed preview, but not before signing a non-disclosure agreement. Seriously classified: how privileged to be privy to this secret project, even rarer to be told “no social media, photographs forbidden” at customarily hashtag-heavy press events.
Three unadorned bottles lay on the table, in their minimalist flacon designs and modernist Chanel labelling: Paris-Deauville, Paris-Biarritz, Paris-Venise. These summer scents from Chanel’s new Les Eaux de Chanel collection of haute colognes made for a powerful study in contrasts against the swirling snow, visible from the floor-to-ceiling windows—coincidentally, you could look directly across Place Vendôme to Gabrielle Chanel’s private suite at the Paris Ritz, where she lived until her death in 1971. I imagined the very scenes and emotions these exquisite scents evoked, inspired by Gabrielle Chanel’s personal relationships with these special places, and through the words written about them:
Paris-Deauville: “An urban dream of a weekend away in the country ... of crinkled leaves and bitter greens”. Paris-Biarritz: “The power of the ocean ... of open air and aquatic sensations”. ParisVenise: “That gateway to the Orient ... an evocation of the baroque.”
Pure discovery in this quiet space, each scent brought their own concept of lightness, exoticism, history, and, for Olivier Polge, an olfactory adventure. “They all start from the idea of haute cologne,” said the perfume creator, who met me in the adjoining room for this private interview. “My work was to anchor that in different scents that translate into an idea of those cities. Travel can be imaginary, and these work in the same way as fragrances that make you travel.”
There’s the classic theme and, importantly, the twist. “It’s subjective,” he explained. “They are not only the names of these places, but the prefix ‘Paris’ gives them that point of view, of course linked to the history and interests of Coco Chanel.”
Deauville marks the first chapter in the history of Chanel, at the seaside resort off the coast of Normandy where Gabrielle Chanel opened her first shop on rue Gontaut-Biron in 1913. With her modernist black typeset “GABRIELLE CHANEL” on the white façade of the store, she introduced a radical sense of style: jersey fabric and dandy trousers inspired by menswear; nautical stripes and bateau tunics borrowed from sailors. No page in Chanel’s history ever goes unturned, and a century later, these styles still take symbolic values on the runway and in the creation of products— the Deauville tote is on every must-have of iconic Chanel bags. And yet, Polge eschews symbolic references. “I don’t think about Deauville of the time of Gabrielle Chanel,” he clarified. “Really, the idea was to pick an ambience, the feeling of the place, and bring it somewhere else.”
And so, instead of the grand seaside of Deauville—“the queen of Norman beaches”— celebrated for its racecourses, casinos, and high-society holiday homes, Polge took a detour towards the countryside. “Deauville is very green and luxurious. Parisians come here for the weekend, so I wanted to bring that urbanite dream of a weekend in the country,” he depicted. “It’s green, woody, and watery—the feeling of walking through tall grass—with aromatic basil as the introduction, into a floral composition of jasmine and rose that dries down with patchouli.”
Working from a place of origin—the history of Chanel—and taking it to a different plateau with a distinct style all of his own, Polge is crafting a new era for the perfume division that for 32 years saw his father Jacques Polge lead and create some of the world’s most iconic scents. The “new generation” of fragrances that Polge has crafted since joining five years ago include Chanel N°5 L’Eau; Boy Chanel and Misia from the Les Exclusifs de Chanel collection; and recently, the new icon, Gabrielle Chanel. “My purpose is to create something that is true to my vocabulary and identity, in the style of Chanel,” he said, that with the oeuvre of 30-plus active fragrances within the house, he is careful not to create anything similar. “The idea is to bring something new and meaningful within the spectrum.”
Which is your favourite, Polge asked, of the three. “Paris-Biarritz ... I love your expression ‘the effect of an ice cold dip in the sea on a sunny day,” I replied. “Have you been to Biarritz?” he asked, almost hypothetically, as he gave me the mood. “The ocean is very powerful. I feel all those images of Coco Chanel with a surfboard in a world
that is more sporty, more dynamic, more energetic. I translated that with a fizzy citrus oil-like orange that even has an ozonic effect, almost like a liquid vivid impression of the air, and the dry down is woody with vetiver roots.”
I pointed out the voluptuousness, rare in sporty scents, imagining the rolling waves at the luxurious surf city in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques region of southwest France. “Yes, it has an enveloping side but is not dark,” Polge explained. “It stays dynamic and complex, even though I was looking for a simpler effect.”
“These are fragrances with a real evolution, that even within their lightness, they stay on the skin,” he said of these sensorial creations that run along the tracks of tradition, and still have a real unconventionality. I asked him about the stylistic references that are extremely varied and geographical. “Places are almost an alibi,” he prosed, intense olive green eyes almost matching the colour of his tweed suit. “I am making a link to certain impressions of those places, imaginary impressions. After all, the first way of travelling is through your imagination and these scents make your mind travel. So those places are the alibi to explore certain feelings that lead you to the countryside, to certain cities ...”
Such as Paris-Venise, which tapped into my memory of being in the fascinating historic city, where I interviewed his father for the launch of Coco Noir back in 2012. Venice was Gabrielle Chanel’s door to the Orient, I recalled Jacques Polge saying, a place that’s both darkly sensual and opulently bright—the black waters at night mirroring the gleaming magnificence of St Mark’s Basilica inspired his “grand, mysterious Baroque”. I was roused by curiosity as to how Polge would reinterpret this as an haute cologne. “We’ve taken certain elements of inspiration but in a completely different context,” he distinguished. “There’s a certain opulence that Coco Noir translates very well, but there’s also room in our identity to create fragrances that are fresher, lighter, and easier to wear. Think about it as Coco Chanel freeing women with jersey.”
I cited a line from Culture Chanel, the book by Jean-Louis Froment, that pulls an intellectual thread through the life and work of Gabrielle Chanel, and describes her spirit as “romantic, avantgarde, free”. Linking to Les Eaux de Chanel, Polge surmised ParisBiarritz as the most avant-garde—“subjective and technological”— while Paris-Venise captures Gabrielle Chanel’s sense of romance.
The legend of Venice in the history of Gabrielle Chanel never tires as an allegory for creation. After the tragic death of her paramour Boy Capel in 1919, she was invited to Venice by her close friends and artists Misia and José-Maria Sert, to heal her heart and inhale the cultural air. It was here, the intoxicating gateway between Europe and the East, that she discovered her love for the Baroque and Byzantine—of shimmery mosaics, hammered gold, and precious gems—which thereon inspired her darker, richer, sophisticated aesthetic. She also connected with Sergei Diaghilev, creator of the Ballets Russes, illustrator Christian Bérard, and writer Paul Morand—all of whom she collaborated with artistically when she returned to Paris, spirit and stylistically invigorated.
Gabrielle Chanel’s epic Venetian sojourn continues to be a leitmotiv for today’s creators at Chanel, but more than the destination, it’s “the journey from Paris to Venice on the Orient Express” that formed the disposition of Polge’s eau de cologne. He likened it to that breath of freshness from the window of a train racing from Paris to Venice, and then the elegance of Proust’s paradise. “This scent is the most urban of the three Eaux, and by that I mean the most cultured with its oriental sumptuousness, balanced with a powdery effect,” he described his composition that deepens with iris, Grasse geranium, vanilla notes, and cedarwoods. Of all, neroli is what really comes through in Paris-Venise, where this citrusy orange flower oil is the thread that links the three creations, and gives them dazzling energy.
For a heritage brand, the idea of modernising can be tricky, in creating a real difference for it to be truly appreciated. Then there’s the question of how far the creativity, how deep into the archives, and how to translate those historical moments into beautiful emotions with a spritz of, what essentially is, eau de cologne, the most distilled in the fragrance hierarchy.
“Gabrielle Chanel’s history is taken as a starting point, a vocabulary, with which I played and created. The idea was not to have a nostalgic take, such as the actual time she opened her first boutique in Deauville, but taking it as a starting point and building something of tomorrow. We are lucky to have such stories to open into a universe from which we build our fragrances.”
In this age where stories have been replaced by pictures, how does Polge see the communication of the history of Chanel, the essence of every creation? “I don’t think you really need to know Chanel’s history or those places in particular to appreciate them,” he conceded. “I am also trying to translate something of the world, that is coincidentally linked to Gabrielle Chanel. These are also ways to illustrate the history of Chanel, here, through the scents and places.” Since the creation of N°5—Chanel’s first fragrance—almost 100 years ago, how does he keep the history alive while making fresh and relevant scents for each new generation? “Chanel always creates fragrances for its time,” he explained. “The world changes so we have to create fragrances differently. It’s interesting how the scents of Chanel have never been nostalgic; our fragrances evolve over time. I see the history of Chanel as a richness, giving me as many starting points, as many ideas to create new fragrances than the weight of a heavy history that would not allow you to walk anymore. Today, there is nothing more important than a brand that has a story to tell than creating something from nothing.”
Chanel describes its Les Eaux collection as “fragrances in motion”, which Polge explained as being something more of a “mindset”. “They are the most subjective scents we have created,” he said. “It’s more intimate. You wear it and it becomes a part of you.” The flacon plays on this abstractness and simplicity, designed after hip flasks and made for travel, in the lightest rounded glass with a black Bakelite cap. Every single detail is unmistakably and uniquely Chanel, right to the sound of the stopper upon closing, the micro-droplets of scent (not the common spritz) that leaves a soothing sensation on the skin, and the minimalist white cardboard packaging reminiscent of shipping boxes. The fragrance bottles are identical, only distinguished by name and colour.
“Simplicity can also be very complicated,” Polge said, which perfectly captures the essence of the collection, where the scent is the star. Chanel Les Eaux de Chanel is available at Chanel Fragrance & Beauty boutiques nationwide and at Espace Parfum, Suria KLCC. www.chanel.com.my
“They are not only the names of these places, but ‘Paris’ gives them that point of view.” – Olivier Polge