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Chanel’s Fall 2014 collection goes down in fashion history as one of the most memorable live runway events of the last decade. More commonly referred to as “the supermarket show,” the collection featured some Karl Lagerfeld classics—belly chains! Knee-high lace-up trainers! But it was the set—a proper super marché, erected inside the Grand Palais, and stocked with at least 500 everyday products, re-coded as part of Chanel's in-house brand (House paint in a color called Gris Jersey, Petits Pois de Chanel)—that anyone lucky enough to have been in attendance still talks about all these years later. It was a testament to the fact that functional objects (especially those printed with the brand’s spartan, black and white logo) can in fact be rendered luxurious and iconic, under the right circumstances. Chanel No.5’s 100th anniversary are those circumstances.
“There can be as much value in products that we use regularly as in products that we use for very special occasions,” says Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur, Chanel’s Head of Global Creative Resources for Fragrance and Beauty, who helped spearhead the limited-edition Factory 5 capsule collection, which officially launches today. To celebrate its centennial, perfumer Ernest Beaux’s classic floral aldehyde fragrance has been reimagined as 17 everyday objects that offer new ways to love and layer the iconic scent. “It’s all about the experience these products give you,” continues Pré de Saint Maur, calling out a body oil spiked with the scent’s familiar bergamot and musk notes and packaged in a rectangular bottle with a tapered spout for a targeted application. A fragrant shower gel has been rendered in a familiar dishwashing liquid bottle, as well as in 20 individual pods that come housed in a minimalist paint can—and in paint tubes for on-the-go use. Meanwhile, a silky No.5-scented body lotion is offered in a utilitarian squeeze pouch.
It’s worth mentioning that before becoming a paragon of packaging design, the industry-disrupting Chanel No.5 glass flacon was actually a simple laboratory bottle—one of the French house’s first feats of transforming a functional object into a desirable luxury item, something it continues to excel at a century later. Another memorable moment from “the supermarket show” happened after Lagerfeld took his finale walk locked arm-and-arm with Cara Delevingne. As showgoers poured out of the bleacher-style seats like a college football game had just ended, editors, buyers, models, and couture clients ransacked the shelves, clamoring for their own piece of designer pop art. The Factory 5 collection will likely be greeted by the same rabid enthusiasm when it arrives in Chanel stores today and at Saks via an immersive, experiential event in early July. Because the lingering scent of a rose and jasmine-tinged soap fades, but its shoe polish-inspired, Chanel-emblazoned keepsake tin is forever.
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