A Place Of Beauty

About an hour's drive from the coastal town of Biarritz, where Gabrielle Chanel first opened her couture house in 1915, lies the village of Gaujacq. Here, thousands of camellias - the blooms from which active ingredients are extracted for Chanel's beauty products, including its vitalising N°1 de Chanel skincare line blossom each year during winter. At the height of the harvest season earlier this year, Imran Jalal headed to this magical land to meet its guardians and find out why growing Coco Chanel's favourite flower is a true labour of love.

Deep in the southwest of France in the village of Gaujacq lies camellia country. It is a wet and cool region where rain falls throughout the year; where the summer and winter temperatures are balanced; and where the soil is deep and the winds are described as almost non-existent. Wedged an equidistant of 50 kilometres between the Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees mountain range, this part of France receives roughly 1,000 millimetres of rain each year - around half the amount that Singapore experiences annually. All these conditions are ripe for camellia plants to thrive.

A member of the tea family, the plant - which bears lush flowers with folds of silky petals in colours ranging from creamy white to blood red - is in fact not native to the region. Rather, it is indigenous to eastern Asia in countries such as Japan and China, as well as southern Asia, where they grow from the Himalayas to the Philippines. It was only in the 17th century that the plant arrived in France via the ancient Tea Road.

As of last count, there are between 100 and 300 recorded species of camellias in the world, as well as more than 3,000 hybrids. The hardiness of the plant is even more fascinating: Its flower blooms in full glory during winter - when most plants go into hibernation mode - and its petals and leaves are not ravaged or affected by frost or water.