Chanel No.5

If perfume has its own language then surely its mostly lyric trilogy is contained in the prose of Parfums Chanel; No. 5 expressing the seductive, No. 19, the outspoken and Coco, the sensual.

Jacques Polge is the third generation of 'Noses' within the company whose founder, the legendary Coco Chanel created a chic that would forever change the way in which women dressed their inner and outer selves. These three men, Ernest Beaux, Henri Robert and now Monsieur Polge, whose sensitivity to scent, ability to balance olfactive composition and reflect the air of changing modernity have enabled them to paint lingering pictures of feminine allure from their palettes of fragrance. Combining the technical and the aesthetic nuances of scent, Jacques Polge is well-versed in the art of the perfumer. He talks with Vive La Vie about what it is that the 'Nose' really knows...

VIVE: Firstly, M. Polge, how did you come to be involved in the art of perfumery?

POLGE: I did not come from Grasse like a lot of other perfumers, I actually came to be there by chance when I was about twelve years old and I lived there until I was nineteen or twenty. When you live in Grasse, you become very aware of the job of a perfumer and in fact that such a job exists. If I had been living in Paris I would probably have done something else - it was pure chance. After I had completed my Baccleaureat, I studied English and French Literature at the university in Aix-on-Provence: nothing at all related to the field of chemistry or perfumery. As I was completing my degree to become an English teacher at aged twenty, a perfume company in Grassee was seeking new people to learn the trade of the perfumer and they felt that it would be an advantage to have me because of my proficiency in English at the time. That was how I initially became involved in the industry. I remember that when I began the training, the first step was to smell constantly, to try to use your nose mechanically as a pianist would use his hands. An instructor would dip a blotter into each of the different smells and pass them to us for identifying. We would be examined on the speed with which we were able to recognise each one as well as the technical elements of the trade, of course. You had to try to memorise odour perfectly so that when you were looking to create a new fragrance, you would have the materials of your memory at your disposal. To develop our senses, we also had to analyse a particular perfume, isolate its ingredients, evaluate the method of its creation and attempt to copy it in much the same way as a painter begins his training. A painter usually starts by trying to copy other painters and this was how we were trained. it is impossible of course, to copy a perfume exactly but you can come more or less close to the original. Generally, we tried to exercise our talents in copying the classics like Chanel No. 5, Mitsouko Shalimar...

VIVE: It is interesting that we are taught from childhood to develop all of our other senses yet it is not commonplace to develop the mechanics of our noses. Why do you think this is?

POLGE: It's interesting that you mention this. Even though our sense of smell is largely very subjective, it is still a most important sense. I have a friend who had an accident very recently and lost his sense of smell and it really is terrible for him - he can't taste anything individually, everything tastes the same and as a result he has lost his appetite. Your own inherent sense of smell would not be too different from mine, although mine would be a little more acute because I practice it a good deal as part of my work. To develop one's sense of smell professionally is not an easy thing to do. If someone wants to take up painting, it is an easy proposition; one goes to a paint shop and buys easels, paints and brushes and it is the same if one desires to play music. But if you wish to learn to create perfume, where do you go? There is no school apart from one at Versailles which does not deal specifically with education in the perfumers art. One also cannot forget that perfume is something so personal, nobody can really teach you how to smell, it is a sense that must be developed on your own.

VIVE: What was the original idea behind the creation of perfume in Grasse?

POLGE: The original purpose of for creating perfumes was to try to rid gloves of the smell of leather after the tanning process. There was a large leather industry in Grasse and the hides are really not very fragrant, so they used the fragrance of orange flowers to mask the bad smell. Of course, perfumes and potions have been with us much longer than this, even the Egyptians used them but there is no documentation remaining of their method and I am not very informed in this respect. I consider myself a specialist in the field only from the time that perfume became an industry.

VIVE: How would you explain the actual role of the 'Nose'?

POLGE: My activities are concentrated on three different levels; I create the new perfumes, and when we decide to launch a new perfume. I am the one who says, we must select this one for such and such reasons - it will add a new dimension to Chanel or whatever. Both these roles are concerned with the creation aspect of a new perfume. But I have another very few people are aware and that is that I am the one who selects all the ingredients that go into all the existing perfumes. The reason that No. 5 is still the success that it is, is because we take great care with all the materials that constitute it, ensuring that they are always the same. We make no compromise whatsoever.

Only a very few people know the exact formula of a perfume in terms of the precise ingredients, the right proportions and amounts. It is locked in a safe and not even the Nose has a copy. At the beginning of this century all the companies had a Nose within the company whereas now most companies only approach the Nose for the design and just to purchase the oil. The idea is the same as a restaurant - when you go to a good restaurant you hope that there is a good chef in the kitchen and that the food is not coming from a cook. In this way I am like the chef of the kitchen.

VIVE: After your initial training in Grasse, how did you become an actual 'Nose' and what led you to your present position at Chanel?

POLGE: I had the opportunity to be guided by a famous perfumer named Jean Carls and I was fortunate enough to become his protege. His father was famous within the business because he was the first to try to write down a comprehensive method of the creation of perfumes. I spent three or four very valuable years in Grasse but you know, when you start in this industry, you don't really have concrete notions of what you are doing - you are centred in a small provincial town. So when I was offered the chance to go to America with a company that I had been working for, I welcomed the opportunity to travel using my profession. The experience really opened my eyes and I gathered a different image of the business. It was very important for me in that I had the first real exposure and contact with what it was that I wanted to do specifically. It was 1969, and the Americans were beginning to develop a very powerful desire to make perfumes, but they had to come to Grasse, to the source, to find out exactly how to do it. Even now most of the New York's perfumes come from France and most of them are in some way connected with Grasse. If they are not, they still must go to Grasse to spend some time there to learn about the associated culture. Grasse is considered to be the Mecca for perfumes.

VIVE: What was your initial reaction to the United States and how did you evaluate the state of the industry there?

POLGE: It was very exciting but I don't know whether it was the fact that it was America or whether it was because I was coming from one small, French provincial town to a large, international city. There was, however, a mystical sense about it for me as several of the older perfumers were there at the time, ones that you learn about and respect when you are young and whom you idolise and I had the opportunity to meet these people.

It was the time when the Americans were creating their first perfumes, real American perfumes; Estee Lauder, Norman Norell... it was a very exciting period, but of course they had a different approach to the French. The French have an established culture contained within their perfumes and the Americans probably didn't have the benefit of such a heritage. They had a new approach and it was as simple as this - perfume was something expensive and as such the fragrance had to be strong and recognisable. They didn't understand that it could be subtle whereas in France you had a different approach - perfumes have to do with taste and good taste couldn't be to obvious. It was a more delicate, more refined way of thinking whereas the Americans initially felt that they had to make an impact in line with their new concept.

VIVE: Has this concept changed substantially over the last twenty years.

POLGE: Oh yes, A more international aesthetic has evolved since the early days and it is expressed in the way that I create a perfume here in France now. I have to take into consideration that it will be sold in America, in Japan and in many countries all over the world. What has in fact happened is that both the American and the French styles have made compromises towards the others' direction. The result is that the earlier differences have all but disappeared.

VIVE: At this time, were you given stringent directives as to what was desired in a fragrance or were you allowed to develop your own brief.

POLGE: Well, a perfumer should be able to understand better than anyone else what the possibilities are in terms of creation, but it is very difficult to express vocally what you want in a perfume. They simply chose the most appropriate fragrance from what I offered.

VIVE: When you came to Chanel, I gather that the immediate task at hand for you was to create a successor to the classic Chanel fragrances, No. 5 and No.19.

POLGE: Exactly. I remember the first time that I met with the Director. The first thing that he said to me was, 'You know Jacques we have to do a new No. 5', which was a good summary of the situation. You could say that I am the third generation of noses within [Chanel]. The first being Ernest Beaux - who created No. 5 amongst others and it is possibly today, still the best selling perfume in the world. Then came Henri Robert who created No. 19, Cristalle and Chanel for Gentlemen and now the third is myself and I have created Antaeus for Men and Coco.

VIVE: In all honesty, what is your professional and personal opinion of Chanel No. 5?

POLGE: I would not like to say specifically, but what I will say is that when you start in the perfume business, you always begin with No. 5 is first of all, the yardstick by which modern perfumery is measured it is the grammar of modern perfumery. Then during your career, you find that you still have the same idea of No. 5 as what you did when you first started. It is a perennial notion. Perhaps one of the weaknesses is that for a very long time it was thought to be the fragrance of grandmothers probably due to its long history. In other words, many felt that it did not depict the young image. Nowadays however, there is a fantastic rediscovery of No. 5. It was the first fragrance of a couturier so one mustn't forget that it was also revolutionary.

VIVE It must have been very difficult to create something that reflected this tradition.

POLGE: Well, I created something completely different to No. 5, I had to. Every perfume has the touch of the Orient about it and Coco is the Oriental and the Baroque of Chanel. to me, it has the feel of Venice at night. Chanel No. 5 reflected the modernity of the times and I wanted the aspect of modernity to be present in Coco also, so I created it within