Mystery and Muses: CHANEL N°5 CULTURE Exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo by Elisabeth de Feydeau

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Palais de Tokyo CHANEL N°5 CULTURE Exhibition

Jean-Louis Froment created this exhibition, which opened at the Palais de Tokyo on 5 May and closes June 5 to  reveal the artistic, timeless, iconic essence of N°5. So many words have been spoken and written about the perfume of the century, so many images have become famous. It has perfumed women, bewitched men and inspired artists. N°5 surrounds us. It is in our imagination.

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Visiting this brilliant show, I looked at it. It is imperturbable. Its bottle with pure lines and sharp edges has remained almost unchanged since 1921. The power of black on white has not weakened. Its name is a number: N°5, rich in symbols. It is both a beginning and an end.

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One word defines and sums up N°5: mystery. The mystery to which you must know how to abandon yourself in order to have its keys. I am facing the sphinx's smile. A serene enigma. The mass of testimonials to put forth hypotheses is immense. The traces of its adventure have been and continue to be preserved, because the history of N°5 is written every day and possesses several clues: Mademoiselle Chanel, the visionary woman who is the source, the philosopher's stone of this perfume, by whom and for whom everything began in boldness and freedom. Through its creators, the House of Chanel has let N°5 continue its trajectory. Beautiful, famous muses have contributed to its myth, and artists have gravitated around it and nurtured it with their influences.

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Gabrielle Chanel and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich 1920

A picture captivates my gaze: it is of Gabrielle Chanel and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. They are face to face. She has cut her hair, asserting the freedom and independence that she conquered by dint of her creations. She looks serene and peaceful after the awful grief caused by the death of Boy Capel. The Grand Duke is 27 years old, 11 years younger than her. But it doesn't matter. You can almost feel how close they were in this moment.

 Was it chance or necessity? The year is 1920. Gabrielle Chanel already possesses the grammar of her fashion, which makes her style. The future perfume had to keep up with the pace of her couture creations, take the same rhythm: incisive and irreversible. During a stay on the French Riviera with Misia Sert and the Grand Duke, she met a Russian perfumer: Ernest Beaux.

 What do those strange raw materials, aliphatic aldehydes, used in N°5 smell like? Alone, they smell aggressive, greasy, and sometimes rancid. But they are a wonderful foil for flowers: they have a magical effect on them. N°5, a joyful, avant-garde, dazzlingly powerful perfume, ushered in a new olfactive genre: floral aldehydes.

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Max Ernst

 N°5 inaugurated the language of numbers in perfumes. Five is the number symbolizing union, man and the universe. It is also the number of perfection. But most of all, the number 5 is dedicated to the human. The 5 senses, 5 five fingers and 5 limbs that are the signature of his nature. And Gabrielle Chanel made it her favorite number.

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Marilyn Monroe and Chanel N°5

 Marilyn Monroe's spur-of-the-moment statement sounds obvious. So are the pictures of her embracing a bottle of N°5. A miracle of grace and sensuality, in the image of what N°5 brings women: more soul.

 The image of N°5 floats over the world, like the banner of embodied femininity.

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 By the time you leave this wide-ranging exhibition, the hypotheses have found their solutions. But only a corner of the veil has been lifted. The mystery of N°5 remains whole. And that is why it casts a spell on us. In fact, its aura lasts because it always knows how to be somewhere else. That is the secret of N°5.

Elisabeth de Feydeau, Guest Contributor

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Mme deFeydeau is a noted Author, Historian, Perfumer and founder of Arty Fragrances . We thank Elisabeth for this special post

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