Anos 20: Quando a Chanel revolucionou o mercado

In 1921, a very clever designer and businesswoman created a scent that revolutionised the way women smell.  Getting on for 100 years later, Chanel No. 5 is still the world’s most iconic fragrance.

Chanel was truly modern, ‘traversing the boundaries between lady and mistress’, as one commentator put it. She had plenty of ‘racy’ friends – but counted many aristocrats among her circle (including, later, The Duke of Westminster as a lover). She first set up a millinery shop, but by 1921 had a string of successful boutiques in Paris, Deauville and Biarritz. She drove around in her very own Rolls Royce, and owned a villa in the south of France. We owe to Chanel our love of sunbathing, too: previously, tans were associated with outdoor manual labour – until Chanel returned from a beach holiday seriously bronzed, and voilà! Suddenly pale wasn’t so interesting.