Inside Chanel's New Fragrance Exhibit in Paris – WWD - WWD

PARIS — Chanel’s caller exhibition plays with your senses.

Dedicated to the brand’s fragrances, it’s a circus of scent and couture, implicit with a ringmaster astatine the entranceway to Paris’ Grand Palais Éphémère depository and magicians doing paper tricks.

“Le Grand Numéro de Chanel,” which opens to the nationalist Thursday, is simply a tribute to the house’s astir celebrated fragrance, arsenic good arsenic its newer room of scents, done a maze of rooms. The exhibit is centered astir a carousel draped with twinkling lights, swinging stars, iconic camellia blooms and treble Cs. Dancers marque their moves astir a circular signifier partnered with elephantine bottles of perfume, with curtains that propulsion backmost to uncover hidden passageways.

The grandest fig of all, the legendary Chanel No.5, has the astir abstraction devoted to its past and legacy. Entering a darkened hallway, visitors look nether a immense starry entity show that glimmers with the Chanel logo. To the side, guests tin locomotion done the past of the fragrance, from its conception and improvement done the years.

Original solid bottles are connected display, arsenic are assorted iterations of the fragrance successful powder, perfume and lipstick forms, arsenic good arsenic Chanel’s aboriginal experiments with packaging successful nickel and chrome, shown with immoderate of Gabrielle Chanel’s monochrome covering designs of the time. Visitors travel to recognize her instinctive imaginativeness for creating not lone a new, much streamlined silhouette for women, but what was the precursor to an immersive manner brand.

Artisans show the method of baudruchage, the hand-tied and wax sealing method utilized connected the made-to-order Parfum Grand Extrait, which retails for $3,500. Only 9 artisans person mastered the technique, of which six are inactive practicing and 2 volition beryllium connected manus each time done the exhibit’s run.

Photos of Chanel with luminaries including Igor Stravinsky and her lover, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch, archer her idiosyncratic story, portion a commemorative representation sketched by Karl Lagerfeld is connected display.

Chanel was famously superstitious, and named the house’s signature fragrance No.5 due to the fact that 5 was her fortunate number. This communicative is told successful an immersive virtual world exhibit, arsenic Chanel’s avatar walks done the rooms of the designer’s flat discussing her determination process with perfumer Ernest Beaux and flipping tarot cards. When Chanel arrives astatine her choice, in-person attendants spritz fragrance successful the aerial — an upscale smell-o-vision, with overmuch much costly glasses.

Another country is simply a masterclass successful marketing, and walks visitors done decades of Chanel ads and replays immoderate of the brand’s astir celebrated commercials. Here immoderate couture is connected display, specified arsenic Nicole Kidman’s costumes from the Baz Luhrman-directed abbreviated movie and others worn by Carole Bouquet and Marion Cotillard.

A assemblage is dedicated to creation that uses Chanel’s logo, astir famously Andy Warhol’s No.5 paintings, alongside works from longtime collaborator Salvador Dalí and much modern artists including Ma Jun, Laurie Simmons, Burton Morris and Chantel Stoman, among others. The pieces are from the brand’s backstage collection, usually housed successful Paris and New York, and agreed present connected show for the archetypal time.

Entering into a acheronian room, visitors are invited to prevarication down connected a sofa old-school expert style, portion they are quizzed astir property and scent preferences. The effect is simply a illustration that aims to brace guests with 1 of the 18 fragrances successful the Les Exclusifs line. Experts from the fragrance improvement squad service arsenic consultants.

The exhibition besides takes guests done newer scents. A country dedicated to Chance brings visitors backstage astatine a creation performance, with ballerinas prepping successful tulle skirts and colorful costumes, portion Chanel authoritative constitution artists are disposable to make a look. Through different door, dancers execute onstage astatine a mini-casino, implicit with roulette, spin-the-wheel and a crippled of dice. Guests are talented a fistful of chips to effort their luck, portion winners get a prize astatine the door.

The Coco Mademoiselle show is acceptable up arsenic a power room, with lipstick lawsuit dials and the much sporty of Chanel’s collections connected offer: a basketball, skateboard, headphones, skis, helmets, weights and adjacent a megaphone — each stamped with treble Cs.

The Bleu de Chanel country shows a cityscape that lights up with philharmonic notes, implicit with a slinky barroom astatine the back.

Other rooms item the fragrance ingredients and their postulation methods, specified arsenic hand-harvesting buds from Grasse, France, and see scent pods wherever guests tin person an olfactory acquisition of antithetic notes and olfactive blends.

Visitors exit done the acquisition shop, which features a scope of unsocial and sure-to-be-coveted items, including Chanel chess sets, playing and tarot cards, puzzles and an embroidery kit.

The exhibit, which runs done Jan. 9, took much than a twelvemonth to complete. Admission is free, but indispensable beryllium booked up connected the exhibit’s website astatine grand-numero.chanel.com.