Chanel is a French fashion house founded by Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, who opened her first hat shop on Rue Cambon in Paris in 1910. With simple, comfortable and elegant jersey clothing, the little black dress and the tweed suit, she freed women from corsets and changed fashion forever. Coco Chanel led the company creatively until her death in 1971, and from 1983 Karl Lagerfeld breathed new life into the brand. You can read more about her in our article Coco Chanel: The Name That Transformed Fashion.

In 1921 Chanel revolutionized the world of perfume too, with Chanel N°5, created by Ernest Beaux. It was one of the first perfumes with a pronounced presence of aldehydes and is still among the best-selling fragrances in the world. After Beaux, the house's head perfumer was Henri Robert, and from 1978 to 2015 Chanel's fragrances were created by Jacques Polge, the author of Coco Mademoiselle, Allure, Chance and Bleu de Chanel. Today the role is held by his son, Olivier Polge.

Chanel perfumes are synonymous with timeless elegance, exceptional ingredients and flawless class. You can find out which ones are the most loved in our article Chanel: Perfumes You Will Fall in Love With, and learn about the aldehydes that make N°5 so special in the article The Use of Aldehydes in Perfumery.