Ernest Beaux
Ernest Beaux - the creator of Chanel No. 5
Early Career
Beaux was a chemist by trade. He began his career in 1898 at A. Rallet and Company, starting as a lab assistant in the company’s soap works. He returned to Moscow after completing military service in 1902, where he resumed his position with Rallet, this time in the perfumery, becoming a member of the board of directors by 1907.
His second perfume (the name of the first is unknown) was his first success: Bouquet de Napoleon, an eau de cologne created to mark the centennial of the Battle of Borodino.
The outbreak of World War I found Beaux back in the military, first as an infantryman and later as a counterintelligence officer with the White Russian army after the war.
Return to Paris
Upon his return to France, Beaux resumed with experimentation with aldehydes, then-new organic compounds which could be manipulated into long-lasting, synthetic scents. Experimentation in 1919 and 1920 led to the development of a number of aldehyde-based fragrances, among them the formulas which would later become Chanel No. 5 and Chanel No. 22
Perfumer with Chanel
Beaux was introduced to Coco Chanel in 1920 by Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Chanel’s lover at the time. Beaux was acquainted with the royal because his father had worked for the tsar. He had reportedly been working with Coty at the time and had several of works-in-progress.
Chanel requested samples of Beaux’s work and he presented her with two numbered series of bottles, the first numbered one through five, the second twenty through twenty-four. Chanel, according to Beaux’s own account, chose the fifth bottle as her favorite. Beaux asked what she would call the fragrance; Chanel replied, “Number Five.” Reportedly, this was a result of her belief in superstitions. She was scheduled to show her collection on the fifth day of the fifth month.
Passing
Beaux died in his Paris apartment in 1961; it was said that the church in which his funeral was held was completely decorated in roses.
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