Product Recall: Chanel No. 5

Doree and Kate dig into the sordid history of the world’s most famous perfume: Chanel No. 5. 

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Transcript

 

Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Kate Spencer. 

Doree: And I'm Doree Shafrir. 

Kate: And we are not experts. 

Doree: No. But we're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums. 

Kate: And today we are bringing you product recall, a weekly episode where we dig deeper into the history of an iconic product and its impact coming to you every Friday here on Forever35. 

Doree: And we do take requests for this. I believe what we're talking about today was a listener request. And if you want to make one of those requests, you can call or text us at (781) 591-0390 or email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. You can also find links to everything we mention at Forever35podcast.com. And follow us on Instagram @Forever35podcast. You can join the Forever35 Facebook group. The password is serums. We have a newsletter@forever35podcast.com/newsletter, and you can shop our favorite products at shopmy.us/forever35. I also, just before we get going, I want to just put in a little plug for our live show, which is happening Wednesday, May 17th at 5:30 PM Pacific, 8:30 PM Eastern. You can get tickets at moment.co/Forever35. We're going to have Nora Mack and Pop in. We're going to have Sam Junio pop in. There might be some other special guests. I don't know. It's my birthday party so I can invite who I want to invite. Ok. 

Kate: Wow. I thought that was directed at me. 

Doree: No, it was directed at our listeners. I don't know why. 

Kate: Because you're sassy and spicy and you're turning 46. 

Doree: I am sassy and spicy and there's going to be some games. There's going to be some good giveaways. So tootaloot on over. Get yourself a ticket. If you can't make it at 5:30 Pacific, 8:30 Eastern on May 17th, you, if you have a ticket, you'll be able to watch it for seven days after it airs. So that's kind of cool. So yeah, I hope to see you. I really do. 

Kate: Well, I'll be there. 

Doree: Yes. 

Kate: This, I promise you. What if I didn't show up? 

Doree: Well, Kate? 

Kate: Okay, I'm ready? 

Doree: Today we are talking about one of the most iconic perfumes in the world. 

Kate: Shut up. Which perfume? I don't know. I literally don't know what this episode is about. You are my leader. 

Doree: Well, you know what, Actually, before I tell you, why don't we just hear from one of the most famous men in the world talking about this perfume. 

Commercial: It's not a journey. Every journey ends, but we go on, the world turns and we turn with it. Plans disappear, dreams take over. But wherever I go, there you are. My luck, my fate, my fortune. Chanel number five. Inevitable. 

Doree: That's right, Kate. We're talking about Chanel number five today, and that was the ad that Brad Pitt did for Chanel number five in 2012. What'd you think of it? I An Oscar winning performance? 

Kate: No. I'm like legit hot for Brad Pitt after watching that. It is so erotic. It's almost, I don't want to say pornographic because he is just, it titillated me in a way that I wasn't expecting closeups on his mouth. 

Doree: Oh, ok. 

Kate: He's got that long hair. Look, I know Brad has a lot of problematic issues lingering, and I'm not saying I condone any of that, but what I am saying is that my body got warm watching this ad. 

Doree: Okay, that's really funny because we're talking about Chanel number five today, one of the most iconic perfumes of all time. And in 2012, they hired Brad Pitt as celebrity celebrity face of Chanel number five. And as part of it, he made this short ad. This ad was mocked and ridiculed to the point where Saturday Night Live did not one but two parodies of this ad. 

Kate: Seriously, I don't even remember this ad. 

Doree: Anyway, I just wanted to welcome us all into the world of Chanel number five through this Brad Pitt ad. Kate. Yes, 

Kate: I can see what they're poking fun at. The ad is ridiculous. It is absurd, especially for a fragrance. 

Doree: Yes, yes. This is what the Guardian wrote about it at the time. They called his Chanel number five at the worst, one of all. 

Kate: Wow. 

Doree: He was doing so well to shake off his reputation as barely sentient eye candy, which I feel like is kind of an unfair characterization, but, but there he is, shaggy haired with a David Brent beard trying to inject hammy profundity into lines such as the world turns. And we turn with it, that he all but bursts an eyeball in the process. All that good work undone in a stroke. All the Horry old perfume ad tropes are here. The hush delivery, the odd look upwards as his brain tries to grapple with the majesty of planet Earth, the way that he clearly wishes he was performing the entire epoxy things directly to York's skull. And worst of all, they come without the slightest trace of self-awareness. We expected more than this. 

Kate: This seems way too much feedback for, it's just an actor who was given a lot of money to do something. That's all it is. 

Doree: Totally. 

Kate: That's all he's doing. 

Doree: I just wanted to one, show how widely these ads were disseminated, right? The power of Chanel to both hire Brad Pitt and make this ad and have it become a cultural moment. That's pretty amazing, even if a lot of the commentary was negative. But that is because Chanel number five, like I said, is probably the most famous perfume of all time. It was invented in 1921 by the Russian French perfumer Earnest Beaux. B E A U X. 

Kate: Yeah, Ernest, Of course. 

Doree: Old earnest. There's a couple of conflicting stories, seemingly conflicting stories about how the perfume came about. So Coka Chanel was already kind of well known as a courier, as a designer. She had opened her hatch shop in 1910 in Paris, and by 1920 she was possibly going to get into perfume, but she didn't have a perfume yet. And this guy, Ernest Beaux was working at a different company that had a chief perfumer, and he was like, I'm never going to get promoted. This guy is in this job for life. So he called up his old friend, the Grand Duke, Dimitri Pavlovich of Russia, who was then in exile, what with the whole Russian revolution and all was also the lover of Coco Chanel. 

Kate: Oh, What a twist. I didn't know that was going to come. Okay. 

Doree: And so the story goes that the Grand Duke got Ernest to meet Coco in the summer of 2020. And Ernest had all of these different scents to present to Coco Chanel, whose real name is Gabrielle, by the way. And she chose number five. Now, other kind of origin stories say that Coco Chanel had solicited these scents from Ernest Beaux and had an idea of what she wanted it to smell like. So we don't really know what the truth here is, but she did supposedly say that she wanted a composed fragrance. She didn't want something that was just single note. She didn't want it to just smell rose or lily of the valley. She wanted it to be complex. And 

Kate: I have a question Doree, at this time, Coco's just serving up hats in Paris? 

Doree: So in 1910, she started by selling hats, but she kind of quickly expanded into clothing. 

Kate: Got it. Okay. 

Doree: And also her shop became well known because actresses really liked her hats. So the power of the celebrity again, 

Kate: The power of the Chapo. Everyone loves the Chapo. 

Doree: The Chapo, exactly. Yeah. So the number five was always an important number to Coco Chanel. It was always the date on which she presented her new collections. So it would be February 5th, September, whatever, August 5th. So some people say that she chose number five because it was the one she liked the best. Some people say she chose number five because she loved the number five, whatever it was. We ended up with Chanel number five, and it was supposedly an instant success. So it had, she wanted this blend. So it had Rose Lang, Jasmine, Lily of the Valley and Iris, where the floral notes, and then it had a base of Vti, sandalwood, vanilla, amber, and pochuli, which is woodsier, so there was a lot going on in Chanel number five. And the first sketch slash ad for it in 1921 is a woman dressed in what looks like a Chanel dress with a short bob. And she's just sort of gazing up at the bottle of Chanel number five, which looks like today's bottle of Chanel number five. So we've talked about packaging and logos, and I think it's really interesting that again, we have a logo that is instantly recognizable and has kind of stayed consistent since it first launched here. Kate, I'm going to send you the ad, the sketch. 

Kate: Oh my gosh. Okay. Oh, weird. Oh my gosh. This was not what I was expecting. Hold on. I need to zoom in. It looks like she's, her mouth is a gape. 

Doree: Yeah, she has her head tilted back. 

Kate: She almost looks like she's wailing. 

Doree: Yeah. 

Kate: Okay. But she is hungry for this bottle of Chanel. She's like give it to me. 

Doree: She really wants this bottle. Yes. 

Kate: Arms are reaching. She's kind of reverently praising it. This is kind of pretty, actually, this is interesting. 

Doree: Yeah, I thought it was pretty well, Kate, let's take a little break and then we will get a little bit more into the history of Chanel number five and how it became so iconic after the break. 

Kate: Okay. I'm, we're back and I'm ready. 

Doree: So they initially only produced a hundred bottles of it, and she gave it away for Christmas for the first year to her best clients, but then it was all the rage. And in 1922, 

Kate: Can you imagine, sorry, I just, I'm imagining what it's influencers, but a hundred years ago. 

Doree: Totally. Exactly. And these were Chanel's best clients in Paris. So I mean, we are probably talking a hundred of the richest women, most fashionable women in Paris. And now they're walking around smelling like this brand new perfume, 

Kate: A complex mix of Lang Lang and Iris. 

Doree: Exactly. And she tried launching another perfume from our friend Ernest Chanel number 22, but it didn't do as well, which is interesting to me. So we go on Coco Chanel's fashion becomes more and more popular in the twenties and thirties. She really defines the look of the era in a lot of ways. Her little black dress, the Chanel suit, et cetera. And then we get to World War ii, and this is where the story of Coco Chanel gets a little murkier. If you go on Chanel's website, there is a timeline of the history of the brand. 

Kate: Okay, I'll do that. 

Doree: And by decade, 

Kate: Oh wow. Okay. I guess it was a hundred years old. 

Doree: Do you see it or do you need me to send it to you? 

Kate: I'm currently in the history. 

Doree: Yes. It's the history. Okay. Okay. So you click on 1930, and if you click on the little discover link, you see that Chanel went to Hollywood. You see that she had a jewelry, she briefly had a jewelry collection, and that's it. And then we get to 1940s. And the only thing for 1940 is in 1939, it says, closing of the couture house during World War ii, Chanel closes its couture house of the five Ruche Camon buildings, only the 31 boutique remained open where perfumes and accessories continued to be sold. And then there's a picture of American soldiers lining up in front of the boutique at 31 Ru Camon to purchase the number five perfume in 1945. 

Kate: This isn't going to be good, is it? I mean, I kind of know where this is going because I know a little bit of this. 

Doree: So, Here's the thing. Paris was occupied by the Nazis in World War ii. So if your shop stayed open, which they say one shop stayed open during World War ii, that means that in whatever way you were at least implicitly condoning what was going on. Right? Because Coco Chanel stayed in Paris during the war. So she was in occupied Paris selling her perfumes, selling her accessories during the Nazi occupation. So there's some conflicting stories here. Some say that she was like a full-on Nazi collaborator, and in fact worked as a spy. 

Kate: Gotcha. 

Doree: Other people say she was just trying to survive, single lady just trying to survive in the mean streets of occupied Paris. 

Kate: Jesus. Oh my God. 

Doree: Keeping her shop open. And there's also the allegation that she was somehow involved in the arrest and imprisonment of her Jewish business partner Pierre War timer. But that is unclear. She was never charged with any crimes after the war. She was interrogated, but never charged. She moved to Switzerland for a little while. Seems like she was trying to get away from the heat. 

Kate: That feels like a little, I don't know, does that incriminate her or 

Doree: Hard to say. And then she came back and relaunched the Chanel brand. And then in 1954, when she was 71, she personally designed a new line of clothing and kind of relaunched herself. There were all these very flattering, there's a big profile in Vogue in America, and it's also not clear to me how much of this was known contemporaneously by American or by anyone really. If people had kind of connected the dots, was this known? Was this not known? Did this all come out later? I'm not totally sure, but it's not great. 

Kate: It's not great. That gives me pause. Yeah, for sure. 

Doree: And it's also just interesting that the brand itself clearly does not really want to reckon with this history at all. 

Kate: Yeah, it certainly, I mean, certainly is evidenced by the very vague history listed on their website. 

Doree: Very vague. 

Kate: Clearly the PR has made the choice to just avoid that altogether. I would assume that's just me speculating, but 

Doree: I'm assuming so that really, I think, puts a Paul over the whole brand of Chanel. Now, was she, did she create the computer system that the Nazis used to catalog Jews and send them to the concentration camps? No. Did she power the trains that sent the, she wasn't working at the concentration camps. Right. And the Chanel brand was not involved. But I think that what she did or didn't do during the war, and let's take the most benign analysis of what she did or didn't do during the war. I think at the very least we can say she certainly didn't actively oppose the war, 

Kate: Which is not okay. 

Doree: She didnt. 

Kate: Wasn't alive then, but I'm going to go out the limb. 

Doree: She was not resisting the war. She was not publicly coming out against the war she was doing, she, I assume what she thought she needed to do to survive, which was accommodating the Nazi regime because they were all up in Paris during that time, rounding up Jews left, right. 

Kate: Yeah. 

Doree: So what were the other couture of and fashion designers of Paris doing during that time? I don't know, but she has always talked about as someone who was a suspected Nazi collaborator. Yeah. 

Kate: That's all. 

Doree: Yeah. 

Kate: And then just kept on plugging along. 

Doree: And then just kept on plugging along. And the brand just kept on plugging along and didn't seem like people really talked about it. So that's kind of what was happening during the war. And I don't if she just continued selling the perfume and the accessories, because those were the raw materials that were the easiest to get, or that the demand was not there for fancy designer clothes at the time. I can only sort of speculate, but she kept her business going in Paris during the occupation. So that is that part of the Chanel number five story. And we're going to take a little break, and when we come back, I have a little bit more to talk about. Okay. We are back. So when the perfume first launched, you could only get it at the main Chanel boutique at 31 Ru Camon, which was also the headquarters of Chanel. But then Chanel started kind of gradually introducing it to select high-end department stores and boutiques like Sax Fifth Avenue, that's somewhere where you could get it in the United States. And the company of Chanel sort of spun off the perfume division to galleries Lafayette, Which was owned by Pierre War Timer, who was the Jewish business partner of Coco Chanel. So that's just kind of like how everyone, yeah. Okay. 

Kate: That's, they resolved that massive fucking issue. 

Doree: No, well, that was in, sorry, that was in the twenties. Sorry, that was, sorry, 24. Sorry, that was in the, okay. Yeah. So she had been working with Pierre Weimer for 15 years before the Nazis occupied Paris, 

Kate: And they had spun off the perfume separate from her clothing and hat stuff? 

Doree: Yes. 

Kate: Okay. 

Doree: Yes. But I believe she was still very involved, and it was always a high-end perfume. It was always expensive. I found some ads from the forties. So I found some ads actually from during World War II in Vogue. There were some ads for Chanel. And it says, the ad says, for the perfectionist who must be exquisitely groomed from head to toe, Chanel soaps for the toilet and bath breathing, the fragrance of the most famous perfumes in the world. And the Chanel perfumes were listed as number five, Gardenia Russia leather glamor, and number 22 for 2 75 to $50. 

Kate: Wow. Expensive. 

Doree: So $50 back then was a ton of money. Also, keep in mind, we're in the middle of a world war. 

Kate: Yeah, good lord. 

Doree: And then for example, in 1946, there was an editorial in Vogue that had Chanel number five with all these other luxury items. So it was always positioned as a luxury brand. I want to talk a little bit about a controversy, and I think Chanel has always been very protective of its image and very good at publicity and all this stuff. So I think this was probably a bit of a shock for them. So it was always this luxury item. And then it also always had this sort of heir of being the perfume of choice of celebrities. There was this famous Marilyn Monroe interview from, I think it was, I think 19 54, 19 52, something like that, where she said she didn't wear anything to bed except Chanel number five, 

Kate: Which is, that's a very sexy comment. 

Doree: It's a very sexy comment. It's a comment you see quoted in every article ever about Chanel number five. It's like, as Marilyn Monroe famously said. 

Kate: Yeah, totally. 

Doree: And then there was a famous photo shoot of her with Chanel number five. They always had very elegant, sophisticated people as the face of the perfume, like Ali McGraw, Catherine Denu, Audrey Ta, tattoo, Marion Coard 

Kate: And Brad Pitt, 

Doree: Brad Pitt. So there's also a Nicole Kidman film from 2004. I say film because that's what they call it. It's really a commercial that Baz Lerman directed. That also kind of became the subject of a lot of ridicule. And these films are funny to me because they do feel sort of PR missteps a little bit. They were going for elegant sophistication, and it just seemed almost campy. So here, Kate, I'm going to send you the Nicole Kidman ad, and you tell me what you think, because I feel like you like the Brad Pitt ad. So tell me what you think of the Nicole Kidman ad. Yeah. Well, 

Kate: Yea, well. Maybe I'm something that says something about me. Okay, here we go. 

Commercial: When did I wake into this dream, I must have been the only person in the world who didn't know who she was with the disappearance, But my world would never be the same again. Drive. When she came into my life. It's beautiful up here. Everything seems so peaceful. Who are you? I'm a dancer. I love to dance. It didn't matter. 

Kate: Oh my God, I'm so into this. I mean, it's ridiculous. 

Doree: It's ridiculous. 

Kate: But I'm like into, I mean, but I'm a romance reader and writer. 

Doree: Yes. 

Kate: I'm following along actively. 

Doree: Yes. 

Kate: I love starlet. 

Doree: A meet cute 

Kate: and a, yeah. I love everything about this. Now, it is ridiculous when she comes out and declares that she loves to dance. So such a strange turn of the tone of the film. 

Doree: Weird. It's very strange. It's very strange. Anyway, I just wanted you to see just sort of how Chanel thought of itself. 

Kate: It's like they have no sense of humor about the brand at all. 

Doree: Oh, they a hundred percent do not, right? No, they, it's so serious. They take it so seriously. 

Kate: Oh God, yes. 

Doree: And if you watch any of these films, there's one with Kira Knightly. I won't subject you to all of them, but 

Kate: Oh, goes through going to watch them all later today. 

Doree: So yeah, you can go through and watch them, and you definitely get the sense, like you said, they are taking themselves extremely seriously, which I get it. They're Chanel. They're Chanel. Okay. I do want to talk about one legit controversy that happened with Chanel number five that I think the company had to navigate, and it happened in the early seventies. The chairman of Chanel, Jacque Leal is quoted as saying that one of the ingredients of Chanel number five is the sweat of the whipped Aminian Civet Cat. 

Kate: What? 

Doree: So 

Kate: That can't be real. 

Doree: So apparently the secreted sweat from the balls of the cat. 

Kate: What 

Doree: Was a very common ingredient in perfumes. 

Kate: How did the Secreted Sweat from the balls of a cat. 

Doree: Yes. And 

Kate: I wasn't even sure how to process that. Okay. 

Doree: I know it's a lot. It's a lot. But as soon as he was quoted as saying this naturally, humane, humane organizations were like, hold up, like, what the fuck? And they urged a boycott of Chanel number five, which I can only imagine was pretty shocking to them as a brand to have to deal with this. 

Kate: Yeah. They were like, what? You don't love this about us? 

Doree: Right. 

Kate: Oh my. 

Doree: And they end up stopping using this Civet oil, and I don't think anyone uses it anymore. They've like, they've found synthetic replacements. But that was just an interesting moment, I think, in the history of the brand. Now, Kate, you may be wondering what is the deal with Chanel number five? Now, 

Kate: I am wondering, I also, I'm trying to pinpoint if I even know what it smells like, and I'm not even sure I could claim that I do. 

Doree: Okay. So if you look on TikTok now, 

Kate: Oh boy, 

Doree: There's a lot of tos about how Chanel number five is an old lady perfume, which we can unpack that and the misogyny inherent in calling something an old lady perfume. But I do think at this point, it has the reputation and the it's image is that of a classic perfume that someone has perhaps been wearing for many, many, many years, 

Kate: And it's not cool. You know how sometimes people find that it's a little bit subversive to products like that? 

Doree: Yeah. I don't get the sense that it is considered cool. Okay. We're going to watch one last TikTok, one last video. It is a bit ASMRy I'll say. 

Kate: Oh, great. okay. 

Doree: But I just loved, I just thought it was so funny the way that this influencer describes what he, I think thinks of as the archetypal Chanel number five wearer, 

TikTok: The most famous fragrance in the world, but what does it actually smell like? Let's talk about it. Yes. Chanel number five is arguably one of the most famous fragrances in the world, recognized simply by its bottles silhouette. This is in no way associated with Chanel, and these are just my opinions. Also, I apologize for my appearance I have no concealer on, and I think I look a little bit gaunt. Chanel number five is that older woman on the back of the bus clutching her pocketbook dyed hair. You can tell it's dye every week, and she's wearing a mink stole, don't worry, her mink is very old, and you see her every day. You never say anything to each other, but you notice when she blows her nose, her monogrammed handkerchief rubs against her lips and her lipstick is a formula she's been using for so long, a formula so unchanged that it completely rubs off on the handkerchief, and she has no idea. She clings to her pocketbook. She's cling to the very, very old and antiquated ways. She lives her life and some of those ways can be biting. Some of the things she says can be hurtful, blunt, but is it worth bringing that up to her? Probably not. So you just accept it as part of her overall picture biting note on top. But one day on the bus, on a particularly warm day when the air conditioning is off, you notice her take off her mink, unbutton, her blouse, just one button and put some lotion on her hands, and her te latta. The lotion is unsent, but from your direction, you notice a warmer scent and a softer side, and in the heat you both smile at each other For the first time, sharing a moment with this somewhat cold, guarded older woman. Also for the first time, she puts her pocketbook down next to her. Basically her way of saying, I accept you. She'll always be there. Or a version of her powdery and leathery Chanel number five. 

Kate: So I'm familiar with this influencer. 

Doree: Yes. 

Kate: The, let's talk about it influencer, and I like their videos. I have to say, their description of the Chanel number five wearer is kind of what I would also imagine. 

Doree: Totally. 

Kate: Like a rich Upper East side Okta Arian. 

Doree: Yes, yes, yes. No one's wearing Chanel number five out to the club. 

Kate: No, but I kind of want to meet the person who is, I want to meet the 19 year old TikTok, maybe even not TikTok famous, but cool by whatever today's cool standards are like is Dime Square in New York City still cool? They hang out there and they're wearing Chanel number five because in their, it's so old, it's new. I don't know, but there's got to be somebody out there who is embracing it in that way, maybe. 

Doree: Yeah, maybe so. Yeah. So that is our product recall on Chanel number five. I hope you learned a lot. 

Kate: I did mean one of my favorite Chanel scandals happened on TikTok, where some TikTok er did their advent calendar, and it was like 800 something dollars and it had the most measly. It was like, 

Doree: oh, yes, I remember this. 

Kate: They opened one of the little compartments, and it was just a sticker. It's like, 

Doree: yes. Yes. 

Kate: The absurd. I do think that there is a really cool kind of cultural critique happening with the younger generation of not just capitalism, but luxury marketing and how scammy it can be. 

Doree: Yeah. 

Kate: That being said, this made me want perfume. 

Doree: Well, if you end up wearing Chanon number five, let me know. 

Kate: I think I'm going to pass. I still feel like the fact that they haven't, company's never really addressed the fact that Coco Chanel was, at the very least, like a Nazi sympathizer is fucking not okay. That seems like the time for that to happen was decades ago. 

Doree: Yeah. Kate, I'm with you. But they're not alone in terms of 

Kate: That's true, Doree. They're not alone. And I think I need to dig into that a little bit more, and that's on me to do my own learning there. 

Doree: Well, alright. 

Kate: Thank you for this journey. I learned a lot. 

Doree: Oh, I'm glad. All right. Bye everyone. 

 
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