Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel is arguably one of the most iconic women in fashion. Born in 1883, she opened her first boutique for women’s hats in 1909, later expanding into practical sportswear before couture, perfume, jewellery, handbags and cosmetics. Today, 48 years after Gabrielle’s passing in 1971, CHANEL remains one of the most influential forces in fashion with a reputation for timeless feminine design and a future brighter than many of its competitors. This of course is not by chance; few brands manage their story quite as well as CHANEL, and none so skillfully intertwine brand story with product. With the 2017 launch of the brand’s first feminine pillar fragrance – a standalone perfume, the first of its subsequent line – since Chance in 2002, CHANEL again showcased its branding expertise and ability to stay relevant within a changing marketplace. The tool for these efforts: Gabrielle Chanel.
Created in honour of its namesake, Gabrielle is said to pay tribute to the woman she was before Coco, a rebel at heart with a determined spirit. I suspect it is also a perfume meant to bring new customers to the brand; its light transparency capturing the young Gabrielle, barely more than a girl whose age then is that of the perfume Gabrielle’s target consumer today. Exaltations from the brand such as “passionate and free”, “a rebel at heart”, and the choice of Kirsten Stewart to face the accompanying campaign certainly played to this younger audience.
CHANEL perfumer Olivier Polge created Gabrielle around four white florals – heady jasmine, fleshy ylang-ylang, sparkling orange blossom and Grasse tuberose. The result is a bright and pretty white floral abstraction crafted to CHANEL’s impeccably high standards aimed squarely at the youth and Asian markets for whom transparent florals are the preference. However, Gabrielle’s amiability was seemingly also its downfall in the eyes of the brand’s existing clientele who criticised it as lacking substance, complexity and strength; it was decried by many, admittedly myself among them, as a CHANEL fragrance only in name.
Eventually Gabrielle did win me over; it ticks all the trend boxes and is undeniably mass appealing, but it does a have certain ease of wear that I often find myself reaching for in the heat of summer when only something undemanding, but still of high quality will suffice. On this, I find myself in the minority though. Many still feel Gabrielle to be a lacklustre release. Now, with the launch of Gabrielle Chanel Essence in 2019, it seems CHANEL has issued a mea culpa to its traditional clientele base who had dismissed Gabrielle as a flight of fancy at best, a shameless market grab at worst.
Where Gabrielle captures the innocence of the adolescent Gabrielle Chanel, Gabrielle Essence is surely the same woman coming into her own – more enigmatic, utterly self-assured, subversive and sultry – on her way to becoming Coco. In perfume terms, that translates to a fuller, much less transparent and infinitely more opulent composition from Essence than Gabrielle.
As is usually expected from a flanker – a perfume released as a sequel to a pillar fragrance – Essence shares a familiarity to Gabrielle, composed again from the original’s four white florals, though in Essence the resultant floral abstraction has been reimagined as more voluptuous, more sumptuous. Essence amplifies the tuberose of Gabrielle’s floral quartet, apparently by as much as ten times, and enriches the base with a heaping dose of orientalesque vanilla, sandalwood and musk. Essence’s composition seemingly delivers a rebuke to each of the criticism made of Gabrielle, and it does it beautifully.
While Gabrielle is charming, Gabrielle Essence is very much sultry. Grown up is the eager to please girl from the orphanage at Aubazine, Essence captures Gabrielle Chanel now comfortable in employing her wiles to better herself in the pursuit of her fashion house dream. Now she is rebellious and determined. With Essence, it seems as though CHANEL and Monsieur Polge have delivered on the promises made but not quite delivered with the original Gabrielle while simultaneously crafting two olfactory portraits of Gabrielle the woman, each appealing to a different customer.
Gabrielle and Gabrielle Essence are available at CHANEL Beauté boutiques, MYER and David Jones from $175, 50ml