Gardenia(1925)

Created by Ernest Beaux for Chanel, this gardenia composition opens on gardenia and bergamot, moves through a heart of jasmine, tuberose, and ylang-ylang, and closes on sandalwood and musk. Combining gardenia, an expensive and technically difficult flower to work with, alongside tuberose and ylang-ylang produces a rich, heady white-floral impression characteristic of the lush tropical-floral genre popular through the 1920s. It represents a different creative direction from the abstract aldehydic structures of No. 5 and No. 22, showing Beaux and Chanel's range across both modernist and more traditionally opulent floral styles.