Chanel celebrates 100 years of N°5 with a bath & body care range

It’s a big year for the legendary Chanel Nº5! This year, the house of Chanel celebrates 100 years of its game-changing and iconic perfume. One of the most exciting releases to come out of this is the new Factory 5 Collection, a series of 17 limited-edition products that turn on the design conceit of transforming utilitarian, everyday objects into ones of luxury.

As its name suggests, this collection spins on a factory theme. Thomas du Pre de Saint Maur, the brand’s head of global creative resources for fragrance and beauty, said in a statement that the idea was to return to the origins of Nº5: “To go and find, as Gabrielle Chanel did at the time, a new, offbeat, unexpected inspiration.”

One of the key inspirations is the understated bottle design of Nº5. When the laboratory bottle-inspired design first launched in 1921, it was a modernist statement against the ornate, almost baroque style of the day.

Think of it as an extension of Gabrielle Chanel’s precocious method of turning the ordinary – like the jersey, tweeds, black and white – into fashionable symbols of luxury.

With that inspiration in mind, the brand approached Factory 5 as a sort of parallel to Nº5’s own history – a “step to the side, in its own way” according to du Pre de Saint Maur.

Products like body oils, bath tablets and shower gels all come packaged in a witty everyday manner. Think tubes of paint, a tin for tea and even burette dispensers. It’s smart too: treating Nº5, a creation often whispered in mythic tones, as this gives it a fresh approachability.

That said, these products – five of which will be available from July 15 at all Chanel fragrance and beauty boutiques, with more to follow – are limited edition and you can bet they’ll be snatched up fast.

As utilitarian as they look, you can imagine the collectable quality is going to be high.

Chanel Factory 5 The Bath Tablets, $103

Credit: Chanel

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Chanel Factory 5 The Shower Gel, $103

Credit: Chanel

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Chanel Factory 5 The Body Lotion, $105

Credit: Chanel

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Chanel Factory 5 The Body Oil, $132

Credit: Chanel

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Chanel Factory 5 The Body Cream, $134

Credit: Chanel

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This article was first published in FEMALE.