Chanel celebrates 100 years of N°5 with a bath & body care range

It’s a big year for the legendary Chanel Nº5! This year, the house of Chanel celebrates 100 years of its game-changing and iconic perfume.

One of the most exciting releases to come out of this is the new Factory 5 Collection, a series of 17 limited-edition products that turn on the design conceit of transforming utilitarian, everyday objects into ones of luxury.

As its name suggests, this collection spins on a factory theme. Thomas du Pre de Saint Maur, the brand’s head of global creative resources for fragrance and beauty, said in a statement that the idea was to return to the origins of Nº5: “To go and find, as Gabrielle Chanel did at the time, a new, offbeat, unexpected inspiration.”

One of the key inspirations is the understated bottle design of Nº5. When the laboratory bottle-inspired design first launched in 1921, it was a modernist statement against the ornate, almost baroque style of the day.

Think of it as an extension of Gabrielle Chanel’s precocious method of turning the ordinary – like the jersey, tweeds, black and white – into fashionable symbols of luxury.

With that inspiration in mind, the brand approached Factory 5 as a sort of parallel to Nº5’s own history – a “step to the side, in its own way” according to du Pre de Saint Maur.

Products like body oils, bath tablets and shower gels all come packaged in a witty everyday manner. Think tubes of paint, a tin for tea and even burette dispensers. It’s smart too: treating Nº5, a creation often whispered in mythic tones, as this gives it a fresh approachability.

That said, these products – five of which will be available from July 15 at all Chanel fragrance and beauty boutiques, with more to follow – are limited edition and you can bet they’ll be snatched up fast.

As utilitarian as they look, you can imagine the collectable quality is going to be high.

1. Chanel Factory 5 The Bath Tablets, $103

2. Chanel Factory 5 The Shower Gel, $103

3. Chanel Factory 5 The Body Lotion, $105

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4. Chanel Factory 5 The Body Oil, $132

5. Chanel Factory 5 The Body Cream, $134

This article was first published in Female.