Call it a viral moment pre-social media. Marilyn Monroe in a 1952 Life magazine interview was asked what she wore to bed and famously said: “I only wear Chanel No.5.”
“The most famous woman in the world wears the most famous perfume in the world. And this is published in one of the most famous magazines in the world. You can easily imagine the effect,” said Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur, head of global creative resources for Chanel fragrance and beauty.
The perfume, created in France in 1921 by Gabrielle Chanel and perfumer Ernest Beaux, was groundbreaking because it eschewed reproducing the scent of one flower. Instead, Chanel No.5 was abstract, mixing flowers grown in Grasse, France, with aldehydes in new proportions.
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“Gabrielle Chanel’s idea was to create an abstract fragrance, one ‘stitched together’ like a dress,” stated Olivier Polge, Chanel perfumer creator. The designer wanted the fragrance to be a work of art.
With Monroe’s utterance, Chanel No.5 became woven into American mythology and propelled it into international icon status.
“She was not ‘the face of No.5,’ but rather the most famous fan of No.5 in the world,” said du Pré de Saint Maur, who finds Monroe’s mix of fragility, intelligence and power to be in sync with Chanel’s spirit. “Therefore, her impact was enormous, in the United States and beyond. First of all, because Marilyn, at the time she said she wore No.5, was the biggest American movie star. And the American star system was also conquering the world.”
Also in the 1950s, the U.S. market was very important for perfumes, including those of Chanel.
“It was the largest market in size, with two very important phenomena: the development in the United States of a distribution of prestigious department stores that allowed for a high-quality retail experience,” du Pré de Saint Maur said. “And the invention of modern advertising in this same market. Advertising that would be one of the main channels for the growth of luxury perfume sales.”
In 2013, Chanel officially used Monroe as the face of Chanel No.5, in a campaign centered on archival imagery and a then newly discovered audio recording, dating from 1960 from an interview with Georges Belmont. In that, the actress said she only wore Chanel No.5 to bed.
At the Comité Colbert exhibition, a bottle of Chanel No.5 appears in a series of capsules like packaging crates that include photographs of Monroe and artist Burton Morris’ picture in saturated colors titled “Chanel Perfume,” from 2008.
Another American artist — Andy Warhol — also famously featured Chanel No.5 in some of his screen prints. The fragrance was brought back from Europe by American GIs after World War II. And some campaigns for the scent have been staged in the U.S., including Times Square in New York and Big Sur in California.
Chanel No.5’s link with American culture remains vast.