There’s a truth we often forget when choosing which fragrance to wear each day: behind that cloud that envelops us isn’t just a brilliant nose, but an entire human orchestra. In the specific case of Chanel, this orchestra is composed of 55 emblematic voices. 55 destinies intertwined between the fields of Grasse and the Maison’s Parisian laboratories, where every day a story is written of earth and sky, of ancient gestures and future visions.
Joseph, Fabrice, Luciana, Jean-François, Serge, Naïlée, Julien, Jean-Marie, Olivier, Franck, Karine, Thomas, Sandra, Olivier, Sylvie, Irène, Aïssata, Vincent, Nathalie, Claire, Laurent, Erwan, Samuli, Fanny, Medrick, Alexandre, Manon, Virginie, Djamel, Julie, Giacomo, Sophie, Danielle, Paulo, Hui, Jean, Hiroki, Sophie, Claire, Blandine, Marie-Laure, Patricia, Cécilia, Tobias, Louise, Laurent, Jamal, Caroline, Nadine, Karine, Baptiste, Caroline, Colette, and Émilie.
They are the invisible guardians of a fragrant legend. And Chanel has decided to give them a voice, literally, through a project that celebrates the exceptionality of a fully integrated supply chain, where every hand counts, every gaze observes, every heart beats in unison with the flowers.
The Land That Tells Stories: Grasse
Everything begins here, in this land kissed by the Mediterranean sun and caressed by the wind, where for over three centuries perfume plants have been cultivated. Grasse is not just a geographical location: it’s an emotion crystallized in time, the cradle of French perfumery, ground zero from which the story of N°5 began.
It was 1921 when Ernest Beaux chose Grasse jasmine to compose what would become the world’s most iconic perfume. A century later, that choice continues to reverberate across the fields that extend for 30 hectares, where five perfume plants grow: Grasse jasmine, May rose, rosat geranium, tuberose, and iris pallida. Five exceptional harvests, reserved exclusively for CHANEL fragrances.
“You risk ruining everything if you don’t take the necessary time to understand the plants. You must dare, try, think long-term,” recounts Fabrice Bianchi, one of the voices who safeguard this heritage.
And it’s a philosophy that permeates every aspect of this extraordinary collaboration.
A Family Story, A Promise for the Future
In 1987, on Jacques Polge’s initiative, Chanel signed an unprecedented collaboration with the Mul family of Pégomas, the region’s largest flower producers. It’s the beginning of a story of trust, a friendship that grows stronger with each passing year, ensuring the perpetuity of Grasse’s rare heritage.
It’s a visceral knowledge, passed down through five generations, a legendary heritage inherited from his great-grandfather that Joseph has jealously and proudly preserved. Two families, one vision: safeguarding this heritage and committing to the future, cultivating difference with an eye toward continuity.
The Rhythm of Seasons Marked by Flowers
In Chanel’s fields, time doesn’t flow like elsewhere.
Here the calendar is dictated by flowers, by their immutable yet always surprising cycles.
In May, for example, it’s rose time, with delicate petals that bloom and fade quickly. One kilogram of roses equals 350 flowers, and each person harvests 5 kilograms per hour. Once they arrive at the factory among the fields, the bags are weighed before the flowers wilt. There are 50,000 rose plants cultivated, and it takes 400 kilograms of roses to produce a single kilogram of concrete, which in turn yields 600 grams of absolute.
Between August and October, when night gives way to dawn, we find Grasse jasmine, the city’s emblematic flower. Each flower requires great manual skill, a mastery acquired only over years. Then the alchemy begins: extraction with solvents, evaporation, the birth of the concrete, which captures all the olfactory power of the flowers. And that concrete, in turn, produces 550 grams of jasmine absolute, the extremely concentrated liquid that Olivier Polge uses in the formulas for N°5 Extrait.
From plant cultivation to its transformation into concrete and absolute, traceability is at the heart of the collaboration between Chanel and the Mul family, who share the same vocation: producing the most fragrant flowers and guaranteeing the same quality today as yesterday and, above all, as tomorrow.
The 55 Voices of Chanel Parfums: Humanity Beyond the Project
Perfumers and chemists, guardians of the Maison’s heritage and consultants, artistic directors and harvest workers. They wear white lab coats or muddy boots. They work in laboratories or in flower fields. They handle the extraction phase or creation, substance or form.
They are 55 voices who contribute, with passion and precision, to perpetuating a legend in continuous evolution. Every day is a symphony of expert gestures, shared ideas, and sublimated raw materials. Every Chanel fragrance is the fruit of collective and integrated work, carried out year-round by exceptional women and men. And Chanel wanted to highlight this human value chain, unique in its kind: through their 55 voices, the Maison celebrates each person and each profession that constitute the exceptional savoir-faire of Chanel perfumes.
By discovering their daily lives, the season that moves them most, the most technical aspect of their work, the tool they can’t do without, the first memory that connects them to Chanel fragrances, we in turn become part of the story of these legendary perfumes, coming to understand that behind every spray of N°5 there’s a universe of dedication, expertise, and love for one’s craft. All waiting to be discovered.
From Grasse to Paris: The Axis of Creativity
Chanel perfumes have been written for over 100 years, along a path that leads from Paris to Grasse and from Grasse back to Paris, in a continuous dialogue between urban creativity and the wisdom of the land. They are objects of desire and fascination, having become over time true icons, containing images, sounds, references and, above all, a multitude of skilled talents. It’s a story of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, made of gestures and noses, of creativity that knows no limits and of exceptional integrated savoir-faire.
The 55 voices of Chanel Parfums are thus the testimony of a commitment that goes far beyond creating a perfume: they are the safeguarding of a heritage, the transmission of knowledge, the promise of a beauty that continues to bloom for future generations. These voices remind us of a fundamental truth: beauty is born from collaboration, from the meeting of different skills, from mutual respect between those who work the land and those who compose formulas in the laboratory.
There is no N°5 without Joseph Mul who knows every season of his flowers. There is no N°5 without the hands of the harvesters who every morning, at dawn, bend over the jasmines with age-old gestures. There is no N°5 without Olivier Polge who translates that absolute into a perfect olfactory accord. And there is no N°5 without all the other collaborators, even those whose names we don’t know but who are equally essential.
The result is a value chain pervaded with creativity, excellence, and passion, where every link is indispensable, where every voice counts. Because in the end, as Joseph Mul likes to say, every flower is a season. And every perfume is a chorus.
Thanks to Chanel Beauty
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