Chanel’s Latest Perfume Launches Today. Here’s Everything You Need To Know

Les Exclusifs Comète is otherwordly – imagine stardust in a bottle …

We headed to London last week for a preview of the latest addition to the Les Exclusifs de Chanel perfume line. If you love perfume, but you’re not familiar with this collection, you have a treat in store. I didn’t know about Les Exclusifs back in 2011 when I started at THE GLOSS; and this luxury collection, first designated Les Exclusifs in 2007 and featuring perfumes that date back to 1922, remains one of my favourite discoveries. The London launch event featured a rare Q&A with Chanel perfumer Olivier Polge, and a private lunch at the brand’s HQ, where the long table was elegant and simple, all white tablecloths and spring bouquets of white peonies, ranunculus and freesia.

Les Exclusifs is rather different from other premium perfume lines: the lineup kicks off with 1922, created by Ernest Beaux (who created Chanel No5 with Gabrielle Chanel herself) that year, and encompasses 19 scents that span more than a century. And each one is inspired by an element of Gabrielle Chanel’s life, design and inspiration that she was passionate about, whether a place (La Pausa, 31 Rue Cambon, La Pausa), a person (Boy, Misia) or symbol (Le Lion, Les Beige).

Olivier Polge’s Les Exclusifs perfumes so far include Misia, a beauty-lover’s dream, with lipstick, powder and violet; cool amber, wood and geranium Boy, smoky patchouli and leather Le Lion de Chanel, and 1957, an aldehydic white musk. And so to the nineteenth eau de parfum, Comète. The starting point is Gabrielle Chanel’s fascination with stars, one of her many recurring symbols; in 1932, the designer created her highly influential “high jewellery” collection, Bijoux de Diamants, a brilliant galaxy of stars and constellations captured in glittering diamonds.

So how do you capture stardust in a bottle? This new scent is a surprise, in many ways. It has a sweetness that we weren’t expecting, and the key word that comes to mind is powdery. It takes a perfumer of Polge’s extraordinary skill and experience to create something “powdery” – an idea that we associate with classic, old-school scents – that also smells somehow modern. For me, it links with Polge’s debut for Chanel, Misia, which also has a powdery sweetness, via violet and rose. Comète, too, has a distinctly feminine vibe.

Olivier Polge.

Current trends in scent champion sweetness (often overpoweringly so), but Polge delivers such a sophisticated take on this idea. Forget sickly “gourmands” – Comète has a warm, almondy undertone which is delicious when paired with spring-fresh cherry blossom, smooth, subtle iris and heliotrope. The initial hit of sweetness shifts and changes to a floral yet musky brightness.

While “skin scents” are a current buzzword in perfume, Polge is already way ahead; go and smell 1957, his subtle take on musks, which has an intimacy and “draw closer” impact – you’ll instinctively step forward to breathe it in. And that’s surely the definition of a “skin scent”. Think delicate but with an inner strength – this perfume blazes a trail on your skin. Most of all, it’s an “optimistic” scent, Polge explains – which is surely just what we need right now.

Read more about Comète in our exclusive interview with Chanel perfumer Olivier Polge, in THE GLOSS June issue, out on Thursday June 6.