Fragrance special: Living la vita Coco

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With its gilded churches and grand palazzos, Venice 奮起させるd some of Coco Chanel’s most famous designs.
Jo Fairley followed in her ballerina pump footsteps…

Coco's love of Venice can be seen in the designs that carry her 指名する to this day

There can be few of us who 港／避難所’t dreamed, a little wistfully, of に引き続いて in Coco Chanel’s footsteps ? preferably wearing a pair of her 署名 ballerina pumps. Coco-philes certainly know about the time she spent in the South of フラン. And Paris, of course: Rue Cambon, 場所／位置 of her 旗艦 蓄える／店 and her apartment.

But いっそう少なく 井戸／弁護士席 known is Coco’s passion for Venice, a city that she visited often, usually with artist’s muse and patron extraordinaire Misia Sert, illustrator Christian B?rard and Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev. 初めは, she went to Venice to get over a broken heart, after the death of her lover Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel.

The city seems to have worked its 魔法, because it 現れるs that Venice is also inextricably linked with so many of the ‘署名s’ still worn by Chanel-loving fashionistas today: the lion emblem, the chunky Byzantine crosses she re-created as 衣装 jewellery (奮起させるd by the gold adorning Venice’s churches, 特に St 示す’s Basilica with its emerald- and sapphire-studded 審査するs) and almost certainly those ballerina pumps themselves, since Coco sure wasn’t loco enough to 続けざまに猛撃する the streets of Venice in heels.

Coco first visited Venice to get over the death of her lover

Karl Lagerfeld 言及／関連d Chanel’s Venice years in his 巡航する 2010 collection ? 素早い行動ing the fashion 圧力（をかける） to the Lido to show them lion-print dresses and masquerade masks modernised with Chanel sunglasses. But now it’s the turn of Chanel’s 伝説の in-house ‘nose’ Jacques Polge (補助装置d by his British co-creator Christopher Sheldrake, who has worked と一緒に Jacques on No 5 Eau Premi?re and Les Exclusifs) to plunder Chanel’s Venetian history to create Coco Noir, a fragrance that’s every bit as 十分な of intrigue, mystery and dark corners as the city its namesake walked and loved.

Coco Noir was designed to 逮捕（する） Chanel's 関係 with Venice; she's seen here (left) enjoying time at the Lido with friends in 1925

Of course, in 2012 it takes some thought ? even if you are Chanel ? to 確実にする that of the hundreds of perfumes 開始する，打ち上げるd each year, it’s yours that makes a splash. So, earlier this summer Chanel 招待するd fragrance critics and beauty editors from all corners of the globe to follow in Coco’s footsteps, 調査するing the city through her 注目する，もくろむs: wave after 排除的 wave of guests from South America, South Africa, 中国, Japan, フラン, Russia, USA, Germany (though only one from Hastings ? moi).

Woe betide any unsuspecting tourist who fancied a drink inside the famous Caff? Florian: inside, the main rooms were reserved for Chanel’s guests, night after night. Or dinner at the Santa Marina Restaurant, where Chanel 招待するs who wolfed 負かす／撃墜する generous dishes of antipasto and spaghetti alla vongole were somewhat wrong-footed when five その上の courses followed.

The perfect footware for sight-seeing in Venice...

And thank heavens for comfy ballerinas, as Coco Chanel’s other favourite pitstops were 明らかにする／漏らすd on a true insider’s 小旅行する: the Greek 正統派の Cathedral where Diaghilev’s funeral (organised by Chanel) was held; the Scuola Grande di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, with its gilded 内部の and Carpaccio mural, and the gates to the 兵器庫, guarded by magnificent lion statues whose downsized 長，率いるs appeared on Chanel buttons and jewels over the years. (Born on 19 August, a Leo, Chanel always loved a lion ? but 非，不，無 more so, perhaps, than these.)

In a 軍の-style 侵略, Chanel （軍用に）徴発する／ハイジャックするd two dazzling palazzos. First, the Palazzo Albrizzi ? 普通は a family home, now host to a 一連の dazzling Chanel dinners.

Then, the canal-前線 Palazzo Contarini Polignac, in which the わずかに wonky 床に打ち倒す was first levelled with a 支持を得ようと努めるd structure, then laid with hundreds of square metres of so-chic 黒人／ボイコット 特許 leather. A 一連の exquisite 黒人／ボイコット lacquered 閣僚s were then winched in: a 巨大（な） music box which opened to 明らかにする／漏らす a gilded firebird that flaps its wings (Chanel’s supposed lover Stravinsky wrote the musical 控訴 of the same 指名する), another playing a ビデオ of light dancing on the Venetian lagoon, and the last with secret drawers gliding open to 明らかにする／漏らす a feast for the nose: the precious aromatic 成分s in the scent itself, from sandalwood to tonka bean, bourbon vanilla to frankincense, iris to tuberose, so-甘い heliotrope to magnolia.

The iconic Chanel button 奮起させるd by...

...a Venetian 石／投石する carving

And there, on a couple of 大規模な leather sofas, the fragrance’s creator Jacques Polge 自白するd, ‘This is one of the most enjoyable assignments of my life.

I spend a lot of time in Venice ? it is a place of 広大な／多数の／重要な inspiration to me.’

Coco’s favourite pitstops were 明らかにする／漏らすd on an insider’s 小旅行する

What’s 利益／興味ing about Coco Noir is that it’s designed to give itself away at first 匂いをかぐ. That Venetian 閣僚 of 成分s ? together with white musk, bergamot and bulgarian rose ? is squeezed into the gorgeous 黒人／ボイコット 瓶／封じ込める. The mysterious 公式文書，認めるs seduce straight away: soft and sexy without 存在 激しい, not sparkling like No 5 but misty and fuzzy. 中毒の, too.

‘It’s a new 部類 of fragrance: a fresh oriental,’ explains Polge, 追加するing that it took just a year ? albeit with 150 見解／翻訳／版s ? to get from the 概念 行う／開催する／段階 to finished fragrance.

The smart money says that, like the 初めの blockbuster Coco, this is 始める，決める to be a 全世界の 攻撃する，衝突する, keeping Chanel one step ahead in the fragrance universe. We can’t all follow in Chanel’s Venetian footsteps ? or at least, not every day. But with perfume’s 力／強力にする to tr ansport us through time and space, Coco Noir almost makes it possible.?