One Hundred Years of Chanel No. 5

by Wanda Sellar

Chanel No. 5
Source: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Launched in 1921, Chanel No. 5 continues to hold its place within the five top-selling perfumes in the world.

Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel, already a highly successful couturier, decided that she ought to have a perfume to complement her famous dress designs. She scored in fashion with simple, elegant lines by freeing early 20th-century women of their tight-fitting corsets as well as their abundant hair. Now, she scored with a simple, rectangular perfume bottle; the stopper cut like an emerald, so different from the intricate shapes that were prevalent at the time. The burgeoning style of Art Deco influenced the shape of the bottle. Encased within the bottle, the perfume that Coco pioneered has prevailed for an entire century.

Coco’s perfumer, Ernest Beaux, a Franco-Russian émigré, gave her five different perfumes to smell. The number 5 had always been lucky for Coco, so she chose the fifth bottle. The number 5 was apparently patterned on the floor of the convent orphanage that she attended as a child. Customarily, she launched her dress collections on the fifth day of the fifth month (May).

The convent taught Coco to sew, a talent that would eventually bring her enormous riches and acclaim. However, it was in design that she excelled, even though she never learned to draw. She designed her clothes on extremely patient live models who stood for hours under Coco’s tender ministrations — and her seamstresses ultimately created the clothes.

Ashamed of her lowly roots, Coco weaved a myth around her childhood. The illusory details of her life reflected the indefinable quality that is perfume — not the reality, but the promise of something sublime.

Coco specified and Ernest Beaux created. In the proposed perfume, she wanted to celebrate the new era of the 1920s “flapper” (the sexually liberated woman), as well as women who were respectable.

Jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, and neroli formed the heart of the perfume, with a base of sandalwood and vetiver, to name a few of the 130 ingredients. Apart from a plethora of flora, there was a surfeit of aldehydes in this perfume — more by accident than design, some say — but either way, the scent turned out to be a stroke of genius. It was the breakthrough in odour chemicals that launched the perfume.

Aldehydes, chemicals derived from alcohol and natural plant materials, have an especially diffusive quality, providing airy freshness. These were discovered towards the end of the 19th century and became significant in the manufacture of synthetic materials for modern perfumes. A little went a long way, unlike perfumes of the past, where for a lasting effect, women had to drench themselves in scent and subsequently assault the nostrils at social gatherings.

But was it really due to superstition that Mademoiselle Coco chanced upon sample number five?

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel,
August 19, 1883 (NS); 4:00 p.m. LMT; Saumur, France (47°N16^, 00°W05^); AA: birth certificate.
Source: Astrodatabank

If an astrologer had peeked into her horoscope, they would have found that Mercury, thought to be associated with the number five, was placed in Virgo, the sign of hygiene! Coco was fastidiously clean, a habit from the convent years where freshly scrubbed skin and the smell of soap were paramount. Cleanliness was, after all, next to godliness. Apparently, Coco had told Ernest Beaux that the perfume had to smell fresh, and one of the aldehydes had an astringent aroma reminiscent of soap!

It seems, therefore, that sample number five had links to aldehydic odour molecules that spoke to the emotional centres of Coco’s brain. The sense of smell carries the odour to the olfactory epithelium, en route to the limbic system in the brain, which governs emotion, mood, and sexual behaviour. Certainly, much of the success of any perfume is due to clever marketing, but there is no doubt that perfume excites the emotions through the sense of smell.

Initially, Chanel No. 5 was intended to be a limited edition. It was gifted to her best clients, who adored it, which Coco was quick to recognise. She began by inviting a number of well-connected guests to a restaurant for dinner, and naturally they all greeted her upon arrival. “What is that wonderful aroma?” they asked, as cheek touched cheek above the tablecloth, saturated with Chanel No. 5!

Coco followed her lucky star, and Chanel No. 5 was launched on May 5, 1921, in her Paris boutique. Never afraid to be different, she created a major new trend: the first of the aldehydic perfumes, where greater quantities of aldehydes than usual made the difference.

Skip to World War II. Just briefly imagine a long queue of American GIs outside Coco’s famous boutique at 31 Rue Cambon on the Right Bank in Paris. What did they want to take home to their loved ones? Chanel No 5, of course! (Incidentally, Coco never slept at Rue Cambon; her bedroom was in the Ritz Hotel opposite.)

The perfume was given another push in popularity a few years later, in a way that money cannot buy. In the 1950s, when a cheeky reporter asked world-famous film star Marilyn Monroe what she wore in bed, “a few drops of Chanel No. 5” was the now legendary answer. Sales skyrocketed.

Future perfume promotion may well have had its genesis in Marilyn’s witty reply. The house of Chanel began to use celebrities to endorse the perfume. Initially, the French film star Catherine Deneuve lent her glamorous image to the iconic perfume, and the custom continues.

Coco Chanel was one of the first to combine fashion and perfume, and now the huge sales of perfumes ensure the survival of haute couture. Let us look more closely at her natal horoscope.

Exploring the Secrets of Chanel’s Success

A Sling-style chart (all but one planet in one hemisphere within 120° of arc) often reveals a resolute individual, aiming to achieve something noteworthy in life. (See Chart) The handle to the chart here is the Moon in Pisces, a sign where the lines of demarcation become blurred. Barriers are swept away, therefore enabling the individual to reach many people of all classes, as did Coco, the outsider. She was born poor, orphaned, and abandoned, yet she rose high and mixed with the moneyed and titled. (She almost married the Duke of Westminster!).

The lack of love in childhood and the loneliness experienced in later life (despite her many lovers) is seen through the Moon’s square to Saturn. Money was scarce in childhood, too, suggested by Saturn’s rulership of the 2nd house.

Yet, the Moon has a helping hand through its reception with an exalted Jupiter in Cancer in the 7th house. Coco’s foray into the fashion world was given a good start by rich lovers. Whilst Coco never married, it was through partnerships that the greatest help came. The emphasis on the Moon, as well as on Cancer, signifies an ability to tune into the prevailing trends, as Coco did so superbly — even anticipating them.

Jupiter, of course, rules the Sagittarius Ascendant, indicating far-reaching goals and a strong sense of freedom. When Coco freed women from their restrictive attire, she was basing the look on her own preference in apparel.

Sagittarius, in the last degree, puts all of Capricorn in the 1st house; this emphasis is indicative of an urge for excellence. Saturn in the 5th house of creativity (with Chiron nearby) denied Coco children and curtailed her sense of fun; work was her creative goal, especially since Saturn is so close to the 6th house. Saturn also stands for longevity and thus, as co-ruler of the 1st house, ensures that the name Chanel will be long remembered. Pluto in the 5th house indicates transformation in creative pursuits. By freeing women from the constraints of their clothes, perhaps Coco was freeing herself from her restrictive childhood.

Chanel in 1928
Source: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The emphasis of planets in Gemini in the 5th house highlights the hands and, with Mars also in Gemini (albeit on the 7th-house cusp, the Descendant), adds agility. Sharp instruments like scissors are a graphic expression of Mars. Coco wielded those scissors like a weapon, as she did her tongue. But Mars is also indicative of the physical nose1 — and in the world of scent, a perfumer is called a “nose” — so once again, enter the marvellous Ernest Beaux. Coco’s own “nose” was indeed highly sensitive; otherwise, the selection of such a popular perfume might never have occurred.

The nose, of course, has to do with the sense of smell, and all the senses are ruled by Mercury. Both Mercury and Mars contact the planet of reputed genius — Uranus — by conjunction and square, respectively. Uranus is semi-square/sesquiquadrate the nodes across the Scorpio/Taurus, 10th/4th house axes, indicative of country, career, and money. This contributes to the revolutionary quality of both Coco’s couture and her perfume.

The demand for perfume has been of such enormous importance throughout the ages that camel caravans, bearing incense and perfumes, embarked on their journeys almost daily from southern Arabia, the biggest provider. Perfumes were also used in worship, fumigation, and healing.

Something about Chanel No. 5 caught the zeitgeist in the 1920s, and it has remained on the wish lists of a great many people ever since. We could put this at the door of the Moon, the handle in Coco’s chart, standing outside of the two boundary planets —Uranus and Neptune — which, of course, promise the ecstasy, dreams, and mysticism that is the essence of perfume, in fact, the essence of Coco herself. Neptune and Pluto are square to the Sun in Leo, which weaves mystique and magic around the presentation of herself and her products: couture and perfume.

That everything Coco touched was going to be ultimately successful is partly due to the Sun being on the midpoint of Mars/Jupiter, the midpoint of success. The Sun conjunct Venus and ruling the 8th house would bring in money galore. Venus in Leo perhaps holds the secret to her talent, since the planet creates beauty in presentation, hence design. The Goddess of Beauty rules both the 5th house and the Midheaven, indicating creative presentation in the career.

Chanel No. 5 was indeed launched on May 5, 1921, in Coco’s boutique in Paris. In that year, progressed Jupiter at 29° Cancer squared the natal MC/IC axis at 29° Libra/Aries. This linked to natal Mercury, which is semi-square/sesquiquadrate the natal MC/IC. As we have seen, one of the aldehydes smelt like soap, and Mercury/Virgo is linked to cleanliness. It had to be No. 5!

Chart data, reference and bibliography:
Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, August 19, 1883 (NS); 4:00 p.m. LMT; Saumur, France (47°N16^, 00°W05^); AA: birth certificate. Astrodatabank.
1. H. L. Cornel, The Encyclopaedia of Medical Astrology, Weiser, 1972, p. 493.
Chaney, Lisa. Chanel. Penguin Books, 2011.
Simon, Linda. Chanel. Reaktion Books, 2011.

First published in: The Mountain Astrologer, Feb/Mar 2021.

Author:
Wanda Sellar has been an aromatherapist for 30 years and also holds a Diploma in Perfumery. She is a past president of the Astrological Lodge of London; currently, she co-ordinates the program for this organisation. She edits the Astrology & Medicine Newsletter for the Astrological Association and is the author of two books on aromatherapy and four books on astrology. Her latest is Chart Shapes: The Code to Interpretation (2019). She can be reached at wandaelizabethsellar@gmail.com

© 2021/22 - Wanda Sellar

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