PARIS — Coco Chanel had her personal view of luck, famously crystalized within the phrase: “I noticed a possibility, and I took it.” Now, the style home is delving deeper into its company heritage by launching the fifth Likelihood perfume, referred to as Eau Splendide, on April 15.
Developed by in-house perfumer-creator Olivier Polge, it’s the first perfume to return out beneath Simona Cattaneo, president of Chanel Perfume and Magnificence.
“I really feel very honored and privileged to have joined such an iconic home that I’ve been with numerous respect for all of my profession,” stated Cattaneo, in her first interview since becoming a member of Chanel in September 2024. “I’m nonetheless within the studying mode.”
Cattaneo described the home’s strategy to perfume as distinctive.
“At Chanel, the creation is de facto on the coronary heart of every thing,” she stated. “We’ve in-house creators, for all our classes. What’s outstanding is that they’ve true inventive freedom.
“From the very starting, because the creation of No.5 in 1921, the temporary that Gabrielle Chanel gave to Ernest Beaux was that she needed a lady’s fragrance with a lady’s scent,” continued Cattaneo.
On the time, the fragrance business was filled with recognizable single-flower fragrances.
“She needed the type of summary fragrance with an undefinable scent,” stated Cattaneo. “So this imaginative and prescient that perfume is a frame of mind, a type of attract — is a vital idea for Chanel.”
She added: “Chanel perfumes specific a stye and concept. It’s extra concerning the imaginative and prescient. Our fragrances, our perfumes, ought to give individuals the ability to turn into who they wish to be. This can be a imaginative and prescient that’s not in any respect a stereotype. This angle is sort of distinctive in perfumery.”
Simona Cattaneo
Courtesy of Chanel
Cattaneo has additionally been struck by Chanel’s capacity to be in keeping with its strategy to perfume for greater than a century, throughout which period it has had simply 4 perfumers conceiving its scents.
“The second level of distinction for Chanel fragrances is that this incontrovertible fact that the home has complete management over a very built-in worth chain,” she stated. “This can be a dream once you work in perfume.”
Chanel has a growth laboratory, in addition to the power to fabricate its personal perfumes.
“We personal our formulation and management the composition,” she stated. “Chanel, as an example, grows a big portion of the jasmine flowers and roses in our fields in Grasse.”
That offers management of your entire worth chain, together with fragrance elements’ high quality and traceability.
“This sort of mastery is totally distinctive within the sector,” claimed Cattaneo.
The primary Likelihood fragrance was launched in 2003.
“Since then, it has turn into one of many main perfume collections available in the market,” stated Cattaneo, explaining that is true in all components of the world.
She didn’t talk about rankings, however based on Statista, Likelihood positioned fourth in america, sixth in Brazil and 10th in France, among the many hottest ladies’s fragrances in 2023.
Likelihood joins a constellation of different Chanel perfume franchises.
“No.5 is the unapologetic female drive. Coco Mademoiselle is the liberty to turn into who you wish to be,” stated Cattaneo. “Bleu de Chanel is the expression of thriller and complexity. However Likelihood is completely different — it’s shiny, joyful, optimistic. And it’s a assortment of perfumes.
“In the case of our imaginative and prescient of luxurious, Likelihood brings one thing completely different — an expression of easy luxurious,” she defined. “Likelihood embodies subtle lightness and luminosity. It’s a luminous assortment.”
Likelihood Eau Splendide joins the Likelihood lineup, which may very well be thought of an olfactive interpretation of luck.
“It brings one thing new to the gathering, with a really particular aspect,” stated Cattaneo, explaining Eau Splendide is the primary fruity floral perfume for Chanel. “It’s a brand new olfactive territory for us.”
Chanel executives wouldn’t talk about gross sales projections, however business sources estimate Eau Splendide will generate 100 million euros in first-year retail gross sales.
“Typically I’m requested what’s the hyperlink between every of these Likelihood [fragrances],” stated Polge. “After all, you would at all times discover the uncooked materials, however I feel it’s extra appropriate to explain it as a frame of mind.”
Olivier Polge
Courtesy of Chanel
There’s a floral ingredient, but in addition a sense and impression, based on him.
“There’s something direct, which I like, about Likelihood,” stated Polge, calling its fragrances additionally shiny and colourful. Every Likelihood perfume is contemporary, with a placing olfactive opening. For Eau Splendide’s prime notes, he seemed into various kinds of fruits.
“I ended up being excited by one accord that smells like raspberry,” he stated. “I showcased it in an accord as a result of other than the purple fruit and this peach someway that it brings, it differentiates itself from the opposite berries, as a result of it has already the beginning of a violet undertone, a rosy undertone. I assumed: ‘Ah, that’s the beginning of the fragrance.’”
The scent was developed with a pure extract of geranium rosat leaf, partly grown in Chanel’s fields.
“It has this rosy, very pure impression,” stated Polge, who added notes of musks and cedarwood in Eau Splendide’s base.
“It’s a cedarwood that we’ve redistilled, barely cleaned of any kind of darker tones to assist the scent within the brightest method,” he stated.
Eau Splendide is available in a round bottle, just like the opposite Likelihood scents, however with a violet juice. Likelihood is golden, Eau Fraîche from 2007 is mint inexperienced, Eau Tendre from 2010 is pink and Eau Vive from 2015 is peach-colored.
Eau Splendide will likely be priced in France at about 122 euros for a 50-ml. eau de parfum and 168 euros for a 100-ml. edp.
“Luck, in a method, has its half to play in happiness, however it takes numerous work to summon it,” stated Cattaneo. “It’s not a passive state, however it’s a results of an motion. That is what Gabrielle Chanel thought and what Chanel right this moment needs for ladies — this concept of luck that’s extra about them seizing their future and each alternative that presents itself.
“That is additionally the declare of the gathering — ‘take your probability,’” stated Cattaneo. “That’s intentional on this planet of Chanel.”
