André Van Loon

The sweet smell of success: the story behind Chanel No 5’s popularity

Its creator, Ernest Beaux, escaped Russia just in time, says Karl Schlögel — or the perfume might now be as obscure as Red Moscow, its semi-identical twin

Credit: Getty Images 
issue 29 May 2021

This is a curious book, by turns profound and whimsical. Karl Schlögel, a professor of Eastern European history at Frankfurt, begins by stating he didn’t know anything about his chosen subject of perfume beyond going into department stores and duty-free shops to encounter a ‘peculiar mélange of scents… the light and sparkle of crystal, the rainbow of colours, mirrors and glass’.

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