Latest news with #Polge
Forbes
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Chanel Brings An Interactive Experience And Sense Of Optimism To LA For The Launch Of Chance Eau Splendide
Inside the Chanel Chance Eau Splendide experience at The Grove in LA Chanel When Chanel In-House Perfumer-Creator Olivier Polge is creating a perfume, it all comes down to one thing: The scent itself. That's the case for his latest, Chanel Chance Eau Splendide, the fifth scent in the Chanel Chance family. 'My work is not visual,' Polge says. 'The sense of scent is tricky because it's very strong and at the same time it has the weakness of being influenced by the rest. Scent has to go beyond one person or one profile.' But in the age of social media, people want to experience perfume beyond the olfactive. That's the concept of the new special event at The Grove in Los Angeles, open now through May 18, that celebrates the new Chance Eau Splendide and brings the fragrance to life in different ways beyond the scent. Free and open to the public, guests can explore many elements of the perfume. Chanel Chance Eau Splendide Chanel 'Fragrance is all about emotions,' says Emilie de Tramasure, General Manager of Fragrance and Beauty at Chanel. 'Everybody brings their own emotions to the story, so it's important to give some elements you can follow, a way to experience something where you bring your own expression and your look, but at the same time feel like you're guided in a way to experiment. It's about all senses together—olfactive is one, but you have a very strong visual and communication also. We wanted to express the color that is so youthful and playful. The concept was about playing with all senses, so that whenever you go through it, it is more than just smelling, but evokes different facets. It's like a maze—you bring people, you give them clues, but at the same time you create your own emotional moments.' The experience at The Grove includes a maze activity, a Chance fortune teller, an opportunity to sniff all five Chance fragrances and plenty of photo ops, including a photo booth and life-sized bottle of Chance Eau Splendide. Guests can even don a pair of violet headphones that match the juice to listen to the earworm 'A Little More,' the song composed for the campaign by Belgian pop star Angéle, who is its face. 'It's something new, with Angéle doing this interpretation of the scent, and she's super excited to be part of that story, and she's bringing a little piece that is so special with the music,' de Tramasure says. As part of the multi-sensory experience, it was important to include music too. The Chanel Chance Eau Splendide special experience at The Grove in LA Chanel The experience at The Grove is just like Chance eau Splendide itself—fun, flirty, bright and optimistic. Light and luminous, the scent opens with a raspberry accord that floats over the floral heart of rose geranium, mingling with cedar, white musk and iris. Typically, when Polge creates a scent, he creates it from the bottom up. But with Chance Eau Splendide, it was the opposite. When he started on its creation journey, he didn't know initially that he wanted to make a fruity floral. 'When you build a perfume, you build it from the bottom to the top,' he says. 'Here I had the feeling and the intuition that I did it reverse. I saw that this accord of raspberry could take more room and even be the backbone of the scent.' Chance eau Splendide pays homage to the iterations of Chance that have preceded it while simultaneously being original and unique. The Chance collection have become modern classics. 'When you think about Chance, now it's five different perfumes, five different formulas, but they have in common very fresh and catchy top notes,' Polge says. 'When I was thinking about Chance eau Splendide, I had to find this note that would grasp your attention right away. I ended up building this raspberry accord, which I found interesting, because behind this nice red fruit there are certain undertones of flowers like violet and rose, and so that is the start of a perfume. We always speak about top, middle, bottom [notes], but at the end of the day, that all blends and everything has an effect. Each raw material has an effect on the other and the idea behind the scent was always to bring notes that would not darken the brightness of the scent. Among those notes, the raspberry ended up to be the most important in Chance Eau Splendide.' The Chanel Chance family Chanel The geranium in Chance Eau Splendide is partly grown in the Chanel fields in Grasse. 'For Chanel, we create and manufacture all our perfumes,' Polge says. 'We have quite a traditional way to handle certain raw materials; we make a mix of different origin, with a very specific olfactive profile.' To round out the geranium used in the perfume, they sourced from other places as well. 'We start with the olfactive aspect,' Polge says. 'If it doesn't smell good, we are not interested. We look for a very specific olfactive profile, and then we work to make it fulfill our policies of organic farming and working conditions.' Chance Eau Splendide was about two years in the making. Though the violet hue was chosen after the scent was completed, it captures what's inside the bottle perfectly. Polge believes that 'since scent is not visual, it expresses something of your personality.' It also fits in perfectly with the rest of the Chance family, which are all pretty pastels. 'If you make the parallel with the visual aspects, they all have something very colorful,' Polge says. 'They are impactful. There is a freshness. Purple fits well, don't you think? There is a little depth to it that I like. This is why color is very important, because it puts a filter on what you will expect it to smell like. And if it's well conceived, the product will have a stronger impact.' A Chanel Chance Eau Splendide carousel at the opening of the special experience at The Grove in LA Chanel A study in juxtapositions, Chanel Chance Eau Splendide is unique yet also has mass appeal. 'What we like about this fragrance is that you can interpret it in so many different ways, which is a part of the playfulness of Chance as well,' de Tramasure says. 'Olivier keeps the spirit, but brings something new from an olfactive story. This one brings these fresh fruity notes, still true to the spirit of Chance, with these woody notes that makes it new and bold, but also so easy to wear for anyone.' To celebrate the launch of Chance Eau Splendide and the opening of the experience at The Grove, a dinner was held in Polge's honor at The Beverly Hills Hotel, attending by luminaries and friends of the house. Choosing LA was not by chance. 'LA felt like the perfect location for many reasons,' de Tramasure says. 'First of all, there is something in the spirit of Chance—the concept itself is about seizing opportunities and there is no better place than LA to express that. The second element is the entertainment. People here are expecting that, and we wanted something that would be not just a pop-up and a commercial presence, that is really entertaining, fun and full of surprises. We knew LA would be receptive to that concept of excitement and playfulness, which is part of Chance, but also part of the LA spirit. Also, when we discussed the location, it was around the time of the wildfires, and we wanted to be part of the revival. We felt that's the right place to be at that time, and Chance is a perfect expression. We want to bring optimism to the city.'
Daily Mail
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Chanel released a brand new perfume after eight years - here's our beauty director's verdict on the spring Chance fragrance
The one gift we'd never say no to? A bottle of Chanel perfume. The luxury brand is as renowned for its fragrances as it is for handbags and tweed jackets, and with good reason – the scents themselves are iconic, beloved by perfume-wearers of all ages. It's been a long time since we've seen anything new from Chanel's fragrance line; eight years to be exact. But good things come to those who wait – and now, Chanel has expanded the Chance collection with a new perfume: Chance Eau Splendide. Chance Eau Splendide £109 Shop With its lilac shade and tart raspberry top notes, Eau Splendide is a sunshine-filled, girlish scent, one that Chanel perfumer Olivier Polge describes as 'direct', with a 'hook that grabs you almost immediately'. After originally considering other fruits such as cranberries for the new perfume, he chose raspberry because of its blend of sweetness and rosiness. 'I like that the fruitiness is not too sweet and that there was something enveloping and fresh at the same time.' The cranberry is combined with rose geranium, which gives the fragrance depth. However, there are no darker spices such as clove or cinnamon because Polge wanted the perfume to be 'easy… the scent of optimism,' he told Elle US. Of course, when the You magazine beauty team heard about the new Chance Eau Splendide we had to try it – a Chanel launch is not to be sniffed it (or in this case, it simply must be sniffed). You's beauty director Rosie Green and deputy beauty editor Alice Robertson both had a good smell of the scent – and both have shared their verdicts. 'This is a fruity-floral – which as someone who is averse to flowery fragrances, I was worried about,' says Robertson. 'My overwhelming takeaway was fruity raspberry notes, which felt clean and crisp rather than juvenile thanks to hints of white musk. 'It's also not too saccharine, which from the description you might assume but there is a bit of freshness there. It's not one I'd personally wear – I'm a tonka/wood/herb kind of woman – but it's also not one I'd be horrified to be sat next to on the tube.' Green says: 'A true summer scent, Chanel's latest offering is vivacious and refreshing. Think a sparkling fruity cocktail on a hot day. It's made more sophisticated with the addition of soft musk and powdery iris and more desirable by the spherical bottle and lilac hue. I'd throw it in my bag for instant cool when the temperatures rise.' So there you have it – a strong contender for your new summer scent.
South China Morning Post
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Style Edit: Purple meets paradox in Chanel Chance Eau Splendide, the new fragrance expressing both sparkle and rootedness, with a campaign starring Belgian singer-songwriter Angèle
Chanel's Chance perfumes have always reflected Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel's philosophy that 'Luck is my soul' – a belief that favours those with the courage to seize opportunities. The latest addition to this line is a luminous, captivating fragrance that continues in this tradition. Chance Eau Splendide introduces the colour purple to the collection's palette, a tone associated with mystery and nobility. This new creation by Olivier Polge, Chanel's in-house perfumer-creator since 2015, embodies the spirit of paradox, combining sparkle with rootedness. The nose inherited his passion – and the Chance mantle – from his father, Jacques Polge, the maison's previous perfumer-creator. The nose behind Chance Eau Splendide: Olivier Polge, Chanel's in-house perfumer-creator since 2015. Photo: Handout Advertisement 'At Chanel , fragrance is above all a state of mind,' says Olivier Polge, adding that the creation of Chance Eau Splendide began with a playful, carefree state of mind. His aim was to express a feeling of freshness and optimism in olfactory form using new ingredients, while drawing inspiration from previous Chance fragrances. Polge chose rose geranium as the key ingredient for Chance Eau Splendide, in line with the luminosity of the new scent. Partly grown in the Chanel fields in Grasse, the flower brings elegance and contrast, making the fragrance fruity but not overly sweet. Polge used it to balance the scent's raspberry accord, or blend, with its rose and violet facets, ensuring the perfume is enveloping while remaining fresh. Chanel ambassador Angèle is the face of Chance Eau Splendide. Photo: Handout He says the colour purple came to mind naturally, almost instinctively, after completing the formula. The shade conveys the fresh, fruitiness of the raspberry accord, while expressing Chance Eau Splendide's more mysterious, complex floral aspects. As Polge notes: 'Chance is a way of seeing the world … a state of mind that allows a certain sensitivity to good omens and coincidences.' Chanel's Chance Eau Splendide. Photo: Handout Chanel has chosen 29-year-old Belgian singer-songwriter and actress Angèle, its ambassador since 2020, to be the face of Chance Eau Splendide. 'The joy and hope that emanate from this fragrance resonated with me immediately,' she says. 'I also identify with the paradox of its fabrication – the combination of rigour and lightness.'
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Boy Chanel: Chanel's Gender-Bending Perfume
PARIS — For his second fragrance creation in Chanel's Les Exclusifs line, Olivier Polge gleaned inspiration from Arthur Capel, Gabrielle Chanel's lover and benefactor. 'The idea, I think, was in the house for a long time,' said the perfumer, who transported an idea from Chanel fashion: making a traditional men's aesthetic feminine when sported by women. More from WWD In Austerity, Brands Bet on Exhibitions to Reach China's 'Forgotten' Middle Class French DJ Michel Gaubert Has Written a Book Chanel Takes Over Covent Garden With Rouge Coco Playground Pop-up 'My way of working on this fragrance was really not to try to make a unisex fragrance but really more to dive into men's fragrance…and to show how well it could be worn by a woman,' said Polge, drawing a parallel to a woman putting on her boyfriend's shirt, thereby rendering it feminine. 'So it was not to try to create an in-between fragrance, but a very masculine fragrance. And — like many other things in life — gender is given by the person wearing it.' Polge, whose father was Chanel's in-house fragrance creator between 1978 and 2013, had long known about the relationship between Chanel and Capel, whose nickname was Boy. Since taking on the chief perfumer role three years ago, he has read numerous books on the subject and looked into its archives, as well. The new scent, Boy Chanel, is the 17th Les Exclusifs perfume. Polge opted to build the fragrance around a masculine fougère accord, a first for the collection. It blends lavender with rose geranium — grown in Pégomas, near Grasse, France, where Chanel sources other aromatic plants — along with coumarin and moss. There is also lemon and grapefruit zest, notes of rose, orange blossom, sandalwood and heliotropin, plus a hint of vanilla and musk accords. Polge described the fragrance as having a duality, with a fresh, aromatic masculine barbershop aspect and its more enveloping element. 'I was trying to play with rules [of masculinity and femininity], which I liked. By playing with those rules, it's a way of showing there are no rules,' he said. Boy Chanel is to launch exclusively in Chanel's beauty boutique in the Marais neighborhood of Paris on Thursday, followed by a broader rollout in early June to 240 doors worldwide. The 75- and 200-ml. bottles will retail in France for 175 euros and 320 euros, or $196 and $359 at current exchange, respectively. 'We are targeting people who are looking for unexpected scents,' said Polge, in discussing Les Exclusifs. He came out with his first scent for the line in 2015. Called Misia, the fragrance was named after a close friend of Chanel's, who introduced the designer to numerous things. Polge wanted to convey the atmosphere of the Ballets Russes and the smell of makeup from that time. Observers lauded his risk-taking. 'Even with his first fragrance, Olivier has shown that he's willing to recast the traditional Chanel palette,' said Victoria Frolova, fragrance industry analyst and Bois de Jasmin editor. 'Misia is a clever perfume and its voluptuous, powdery character was a surprise. Olivier combines two skills that are key for any perfumer — impeccable technique and imagination. In the past he has shown that he is not afraid to take creative risks.' Wendy Liebmann, chief executive officer of WSL Strategic Retail, credited Chanel's longtime couturier Karl Lagerfeld for ensuring its fashion remains relevant to new generations of luxury shoppers and Polge senior for doing the same in perfume. 'One of the strengths of Chanel fragrances is that each is grounded in an intriguing Chanel story — not just top notes and bottom notes, not just celebrities. With the introduction of Misia, that continues. That's good news because it is very relevant to shoppers now — especially younger shoppers,' she said. 'The term 'authenticity' is often overused today, but certainly here it feels appropriate, even this early into his tenure: Olivier Polge brings an authentic and yet next-generation sensibility to the Chanel brand.' Frovola said Polge's challenge will be to maintain Chanel's reputation for quality and elegance, while allowing for his 'own signature, which is quite distinctive. This is much harder than it sounds, because he is contending with many legends — No. 5, 19, Coco, etc. How do you make your mark when you work alongside such standards? For my part, I hope that he will take more risks and be willing to reinterpret the legacy of Chanel in his own style. And above all, maintain the quality of new launches and classics, the hallmark of the house since its inception.' Best of WWD The Best Makeup Looks in Golden Globes History A Look Back at Golden Globes Best Makeup on the Red Carpet, From Megan Fox to Sophia Loren [PHOTOS] The Best Hairstyles in Golden Globes History
