The Secret of Chanel No. 5 (34 page)

4
Called simply
La Jolie Parfumeuse–
“the pretty perfumer”:
Charles-Roux,
Chanel,
53, 78; Hector Jonathan Crémieux and Ernest Blum, La Jolie Parfumeuse,
An Opera-Comique in Three Acts
(New York: Metropolitan Print, 1875).

5
What had occurred to her was–as she put it herself years later–that she had “a hot little body”:
Judith Thurman, “Scenes from a Marriage: The House of Chanel at the Met,”
The New Yorker,
May 23, 2005, www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/05/23/050523crat_atlarge1?currentPage=all.

6
the tunes of “Qui qu'a vu Coco” and “Ko Ko Ri Ko”:
“Ko Ko Ri Ko” was a song from the popular turn-of-the-century one-act opera
Ba-Ta-Clan
(1855), by Jacques Offenbach–the man behind
La Jolie Parfumeuse
–and librettist Ludovic Halévy. Ko Ko Ri Ko (baritone) is a French colonialist plotting a coup d'état against the Chinese emperor; the plot involves humorous political machinations, rousing songs, and jokes about Frenchmen meeting abroad. The character may have later been an inspiration for Ko Ko in Gilbert and Sullivan's
Mikado
(1885). Mary E. Davis notes that it was made famous as a piece of boulevard music in 1897 by the stage star Émilie Marie Bouchaud, better known as Polaire; see Mary E. Davis,
Classic Chic: Music, Fashion, Modernism
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 154.

The other song that gave Coco her nickname was also a popular stage number. Davis writes that “Qui qu'a vu Coco dans le Trocadero” was a “ ‘canine complaint' recounting the adventures of a lost dog, which was composed by Elise Faure in 1889,” 154. The lyrics translate to “Who has seen Coco on the Trocadero, / Haven't you seen Coco? / Coco on the Trocadero, / Co on the Tro, / Co on the Tro, / Coco on the Trocadero, / Who, oh, who has seen Coco? / Eh! Coco! / Eh! Coco! / Who, oh, who has seen Coco? / Eh! Coco!”

7
“For a large section of society, the similarities between the actress's life and the prostitute's or
demi-mondaine's
were unforgettable and overruled all other evidence of respectability”:
Tracy C. Davis,
Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture
(London: Routledge, 1991), 69.

8
She had consented to “be ‘hired' for amusement”:
Davis,
Actresses as Working Women,
69.

9
what her biographers believe was a botched abortion:
Madsen,
Chanel,
27.

10
“I've already had one protector named Étienne, and he performed miracles too”:
Charles-Roux,
Chanel,
73.

11
She had been mistress to the king of Belgium:
See Claude Dufresne,
Trois Grâces de la Belle Époque
(Paris: Bartillat, 2003); Cornelia Otis Skinner,
Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962); Florence Tamagne,
A History of Homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris, 1919–1939
(New York: Algora Publishing, 2006); and Marcel Proust,
À la recherche du temps perdu
(Paris: Gallimard, 2002).

12
there was a notable difference between the scent of a courtesan and the scent of a nice girl:
Richard Stamelman,
Perfume: Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin
(New York: Rizzoli, 2006), 29, 93; see also Edwin Morris,
Fragrance: The Story of Perfume from Cleopatra to Chanel
(New York: Charles Scribner's, 1984).

13
the world's oldest perfume was made on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus:
John Roach, “Oldest Perfumes in History Found on Aphrodite's Island,”
National Geographic News,
March 29, 2007.

14
the ancient world's most famous cults dedicated to sacred prostitution:
Stephanie Budin,
The Myth of Sacred Prostitution
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 50.

15
a plant resin from the Cistercians'
cistus
or rockrose, known as labdanum–is inherently sexy:
See, for example, Manfred Milinski and Claus Wedekind, “Evidence for MHC-Correlated Perfume Preferences in Humans,”
Behavioral Ecology
12, no. 2 (2001): 140–49; for more on the origins of this material, see H. Greche, N. Mrabet, and S. Zrira, “The Volatiles of the Leaf Oil of
Cistus ladanifer L. var. albiflorus
and Labdanum Extracts of Moroccan Origin and Their Antimicrobial Activities,”
Journal of Essential Oil Research
21, no. 2 (2009), 166–73.

16
the “ floating gold” known as ambergris or “gray amber”:
See Cynthia Graber, “Strange but True, Whale Waste Is Extremely Valuable,”
Scientific American,
April 26, 2007; Corey Kilgannon, “Gift of Petrified Whale Vomit Could Be Worth Its Weight in Gold,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
December 25, 2006, A22.

17
Jeanne Bécu, better known to history as the celebrated royal courtesan Madame du Barry:
See Joan Haslip,
Madame du Barry: The Wages of Beauty
(London: Tauris Parke, 2005); Corey Kilgannon, “Please Let It Be Whale Vomit, and Not Just Sea Junk,”
New York Times,
December 18, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/nyregion/18whale.html?pagewanted=print; Kilgannon, “Gift of Petrified Whale Vomit.” See also Cynthia Graber, “Strange but True, Whale Waste Is Extremely Valuable,”
Scientific American,
April 26, 2007, www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-whale-waste-is-valuable.

18
Joséphine doused everything in the palace at Versailles in the intimate smells of animal musk:
Stamelman,
Perfume,
120.

19
“
the
‘Odor di femina'
of prostitutes and other women of easy virtue”:
Stamelman,
Perfume,
95.

20
“were marked as belonging to the marginal world of prostitutes and courtesans”:
Stamelman,
Perfume,
29.

21
Women “of good taste and standing” wore “only [the] simple floral scents”:
Stamelman,
Perfume,
95.

22
So keen was her nose … the way some of those other kept women smelled made her nauseous:
Madsen,
Chanel,
38.

23
women with the childish bodies known as
fruits verts
–green fruits:
Madsen,
Chanel,
36; for its origins in erotic literature of the period, see, for example, Alphonse Momas,
Green Girls
(Paris: Renaudie, 1899); or the pseudonymous “Donewell,”
Green Girls
(Paris: Bouillant, 1899), cited in Peter Mendes,
Clandestine Fiction in English 1800–1930, A Bibliographical Study,
Scolar [sic] Press (Aldershot, UK, 1993), 312; thanks to Stephen Halliwell, Christine Roth, and the Victoria listserv for this reference.

24
what was titillating wasn't women who looked like men, “but rather like children”:
Alison Laurie,
The Language of Clothes
(New York: Random House, 1981), quoted in Davis,
Classic Chic,
163.

25
Victor Margueritte's scandalously erotic novel
La Garçonne: Victor Margueritte,
La Garçonne
(New York: A. Knopf, 1923; Paris: E. Flammarion, 1922; with illustrations by Kees van Dongen).

1
She liked that Boy smelled of “leather, horses, forest, and saddle soap”:
Madsen,
Chanel,
49; details of Coco Chanel's early life here and following drawn from the various biographies cited above.

2
Virginia Woolf would make the bold assertion that “On or about December 1910 human character changed,” bringing along with it sweeping changes in “religion, conduct, politics, and literature”:
Virginia Woolf, “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” in Mitchell A. Leaska, ed.,
The Virginia Woolf Reader
(San Diego: Harcourt, 1984), 194.

3
the initial lease on her boutique on rue Cambon had in it a clause:
Galante,
Mademoiselle Chanel,
30.

4
Fragrance had already made the young Corsican entrepreneur François Coty … one of France's richest men:
Roulhac B. Toledano and Elizabeth Z. Coty,
François Coty: Fragrance, Power, Money
(Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2009), 24.

5
Inspired by the “heavily perfumed odalisques in
Scheherazade,”
it was a sultan's fantasy:
Christine Mayer Lefkowith,
Paul Poiret and His Rosine Perfumes
(New York: Editions Stylissimo, 2007), 36; also the source of details on the launch of Parfums de Rosine below. Dana Thomas, speaking with perfumer Jean Kerléo, reports that Poiret may have developed before Nuit Persanes a fragrance called Coupe d'Or (Golden Cup), also suggestive of oriental fantasy. See Dana Thomas,
Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster
(New York: Penguin, 2007), 141.

6
That summer evening, on June, 24, 1911, the warm air was alive with the sound of low Persian music:
The party is described by Paul Poiret in his memoirs; see Paul Poiret,
The King of Fashion: The Autobiography of Paul Poiret
(London: V & A Publishing), 2009.

7
Maurice Babani became the second couturier to launch a signature scent:
Marie-Christine Grasse, Elisabeth de Feydeau, and Freddy Ghozland,
L'un des sens. Le Parfum au XXème siècle
(Toulouse: Éditions Milan, 2001), page for 1921.

8
bestselling book,
Modern Dancing,
written by the couple of the hour, Verne and Irene Castle:
Vernon and Irene Castle,
Modern Dancing
(New York: Harper, 1914); see also Eve Golden,
Vernon and Irene's Ragtime Revolution
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007).

9
just because he and Coco were in love didn't mean that Boy didn't have a stable of mistresses:
Baillén,
Mademoiselle Chanel,
20; Haedrich,
Coco Chanel,
76.

10
she could afford to treat herself to a seaside villa in the south of France and a “little blue Rolls”:
Davis,
Classic Chic,
169.

11
“The war helped me,” Chanel later remembered. “Catastrophes show … I woke up famous”:
Haedrich,
Coco Chanel,
95.

12
the city was still filled with many of the two million American soldiers:
Toledano and Coty,
François Coty,
24.

13
large fragrance companies like Bourjois and Coty had begun setting up offices in the United States by the 1910s:
On the history of the French perfume industry and the American markets, see Toledano and Coty,
François Coty;
Geneviève Fontan,
Générations Bourjois
(Toulouse, France: Arfon, 2005); Morris,
Fragrance;
Harvey Levenstein,
We'll Always Have Paris: American Tourists in France Since 1930
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); and Helen M. Caldwell, “1920–29: The Decade of the French Mystique in the American Perfume Market,” http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/charm/CHARM%20pro-ceedings/CHARM%20article%20archive%20pdf%20format/Volume%20 4%201989/259%20caldwell.pdf.

14
François Coty, who in 1919 became France's first billionaire … wife Yvonne, who had also made her start as a fellow milliner in Paris:
Details here and following from Toledano and Coty,
François Coty,
24, 50,
passim;
Coty had earned his first billion by 1919.

15
Coco Chanel received an excited visit from a friend, the bohemian socialite Misia Sert:
See Arthur Gold,
Misia: The Life of Misia Sert
(New York: Vintage, 1992).

16
They had talked about it already, debated bottle designs, and even planned how Coco would market it to her couture clients:
According to Misia Sert, “Together we studied the packaging, a solemn, ultra-simple, quasi-pharmaceutical bottle, but in the Chanel taste and wrapped in … elegance,” Madsen,
Chanel,
133.

17
It was a formula for the lost “miraculous perfume” of the Medici queens:
Charles-Roux,
Chanel,
164.

18
After all, the history of perfume-making in France began at the court of the Medici queens:
See Nigel Groom,
The New Perfume Handbook
(London: Chapman and Hall, 1997).

19
“set up a laboratory in Grasse for the study of perfume-making in order to rival the fashionable Arab perfumes”:
Groom,
The New Perfume Handbook,
143.

20
She paid six thousand francs–the equivalent of nearly $10,000 today:
Determining the relative value of historical currency is a notoriously imprecise science; all contemporary figures given here are based on the calculators developed by Professors Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson at www.measuring worth.com/uscompare/. The value of all commodities are calculated using consumer-price-index measures; other measures are as noted.

21
Misia Sert would later claim that this was the origin of Chanel No. 5:
Madsen,
Chanel,
133; see also Dominque Laty,
Misia Sert et Coco Chanel
(Paris: Jacob, 2009); Misia Sert,
Misia par Misia
(Paris: Gallimard, 1952); Gold,
Misia.

22
His wife, Yvonne, always claimed that … François offered to let her use his laboratory for the development:
Toledano and Coty,
François Coty;
the authors claim that, as late as 1960, there were people who saw the original bill, “presented on old brown paper with the company watermark,” 86.