With its freshly launched limited-edition collection Chanel Factory 5, the French beauty house is out to create a buzz. The range, which puts irreverent packaging on center stage, was created to celebrate Chanel’s iconic N°5 fragrance centennial. To promote the collection, a series of pop-up shops are opening across the globe, with a first location opening its doors in Paris this week.
“By taking popular consumer items out of their context and dressing them up in the aesthetics of N°5, we return to Chanel’s first creative gesture: that of transforming a functional object into a desirable luxury item. That’s what Chanel Factory 5 is all about: offering the experience of luxury in everyday life,” explains Chanel’s Head of Global Creative Resources Fragrance and Beauty Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur in a statement.
Indeed, the 17-sku collection, offering products ranging from bath and bodycare to fragrance and sticky tape, are housed in bespoke “functional” packaging: shower gel in a paint can, body emulsion housed in a doypack, body cream in a gouache-type paint tube.
“There can be as much value in products that we use regularly as in products that we use for very special occasions. It’s all about the experience these products give you,” adds du Pré de Saint Maur.
Chanel has launched a novel secondary pack for two of its N°5 fragrances — the 100ml formats of L’Eau and the Eau de Parfum — which, for this collection, replaces the perfume’s traditional boxes. Created by Knoll Packaging, this new box is made of Knoll Ecoform, a pulp material comprised of FSC-certified bamboo and sustainable sugarcane residue whose design hugs the contours of the famed bottle. Stay tuned for a closer technical look at this novel packaging in the coming weeks...
