75, but Still Young at Heart

Chanel No. 5, the only thing Marilyn Monroe wore to bed, is 75 years old this month.

Formulated exactly as it is today and packaged in virtually the same bottle and box, the perfume was introduced by the revolutionary designer Coco Chanel to special clients in 1921.

Which would make it 76, no?

“Last year we launched [the fragrance] Allure,” explains Laurie Palma, vice president of fragrance marketing. And any hoopla surrounding No. 5 might have been a distraction. So, the belated birthday becomes another footnote in the Chanel lore, which also includes at least two accounts of how the scent got its name.

In the simpler telling, Chanel blessed the creation with her lucky number. In the more complex one, she chose the fifth vial presented to her for consideration by the famous chemist Earnest Beaux.

Born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel in 1883, Coco, as she reinvented herself, rose, fell and rose again as the high priestess of haute couture until her death in 1971. Her passion for spare, elegant, modern clothes is reflected in the fresh, eternally young notes of No. 5.

Pascal, the 82-year-old sculptress who lives in Los Angeles, says her relationship with the perfume is at least 70 years old. “At one time, it was the essence of the best. My mother used it. I thought it was the only perfume there was.”

While studying art at age 17 in Paris, Pascal was introduced to Coco Chanel at the Ritz hotel, where the designer lived. She recalls being surrounded by No. 5. “It was part of our lives. . . . At the time, Chanel seemed a nice thing to wear, especially among the paints,” says the artist, who was then immersed in oils of flowers.

She still wears No. 5 but turns the recognizable scent into something altogether personal by mixing it with Cartier’s Pasha and Guerlain’s Jicky.

At $250 an ounce, few would dare to tamper. A combination of ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, iris and patchouli, it’s one of the world’s premier fragrances, industry experts say. It also has the distinction of being the first scent enshrined, in 1987, in the American Fragrance Foundation’s Hall of Fame. No. 5’s staying power is unequaled, says foundation president Annette Green.

“Sure, there have been a few others: Joy, Shalimar, L’Air du Temps pop into my head. But nothing like No. 5. It never loses it’s vivacity. . . . Like Rolls-Royce, it’s forever contemporary. It’s remarkable but true.”

So, too, is the news that, as far as anyone at Chanel can tell, Marilyn Monroe did not receive a free drop of No. 5 after her unsolicited endorsement.