Brand Bible

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Vintage Chanel No. 5

bottle

BREAkING

ThE moLD:

coco chANEL,

kRUEGER

BEER, AND

LAcoSTE



and

06

 was a

time of great societal transformation, insti-

gated and marked by the arrival of new

products, technologies, and forms of visual

communication. The emergence of continu-

ous-process manufacturing, combined with

the invention of oset printing, made the crea-

tion and marketing of mass-produced goods

possible, and allowed manufacturers to use

packaging and graphics to speak directly to

consumers, who began asking for specic

brands. In this way, the package itself became

the hallmark of a product’s quality and the

point of dierentiation. Then, as now, it was

common for the various product oerings in a

single category—beauty products, beverages,

or food—to conform to a specic look. Tradi-

tionally, these product norms were dened by

the company that was the leader or the rst

brand in a category. But in the early 1900s, a

number of brands broke away from the “stand-

ard rule,” establishing a new design aesthetic

and altering consumer expectations. Three

notable examples of such successful brand-

ing mavericks from this era are ChanelNo.5,

Krueger Beer, and Lacoste.

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83Breaking the Mold: Coco Chanel, Krueger Beer, and Lacoste

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85

deep at the same time, and that powerful simplic-

ity carried over to the perfume’s sleek package

design. ChanelNo.5’s understated bottle, with

its clean lines and pared-down label, embodied

the sentiment often attributed to Chanel; that

“elegance is refusal.”

When it launched in 1921, ChanelNo.5 was sold

exclusively in the Chanel store in Paris. Even

without an initial marketing campaign or public

relations eorts, the fragrance quickly became

a brand synonymous with style and luxury. Its

popularity was mainly driven by word of mouth,

thanks to the connections Chanel had culti-

vated through her social milieu. This new style

of marketing, or lack thereof, turned her social

network into passionate brand advocates. And

due to its prestige, women began to actively seek

out the perfume and thus to dictate growth in

the market. Just as Chanel’s perfume redened

the fragrance category, it also redened women’s

power as consumers.

Chanel Reinvents Scent

At the turn of the twentieth century, women’s

perfume had its own aesthetic of conformity:

Bottles were highly decorative, often featuring

embellished designs in an art nouveau style. The

contents of these elaborate receptacles were also

extravagant: Women’s perfumes were lush and

oral, based on essences of rose, lily of the valley,

and lilac. The French fashion designer Coco

Chanel, already famous by the early 1920s for her

millinery and clothing design, thought these oral

perfumes did not reect women’s true character.

As she once said, “Women are not owers. Why

should they want to smell like owers?”

With that as her guiding principle, Chanel sought

to create a perfume manufactured specically

for women and made from synthetic ingredients.

After enlisting the longtime perfumer Ernest

Beaux to craft the scent, she achieved her goal

with ChanelNo.5, one of the rst aldehyde-based

scents. The perfume is surprisingly simple, yet

The perfume is surprisingly simple, yet deep at

the same time, and that powerful simplicity

carried over to the perfume’s sleek package design.

Images from

Chanel No. 5

advertisement, 1961

Breaking the Mold: Coco Chanel, Krueger Beer, and Lacoste

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