BOTTLING STARDUST

Born under a lucky star, Chanel's new fragrance pays homage to its past and sets us up for a stellar future.

- JISHNU BANDYOPADHYAY

Before joining Chanel in 2013, Olivier Polge honed his skills at other fragrance houses. At Chanel, Polge has created new fragrances and reinterpreted classics. Since becoming the head perfumer in 2015, he has balanced his creative vision with the utmost respect for Chanel’s heritage, ensuring the brand’s fragrances remain timeless. This time, it’s no different.

In 1932, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, a believer in celestial signs, launched her groundbreaking Bijoux de Diamants high jewellery collection, with the Comète necklace as its centrepiece. This theme is continued with the launch of a new perfume, Comète, that draws from Polge’s Grasse roots. Polge tells Bazaar India all about how the scent of the season came to be.

Harper’s Bazaar: What was the starting point for creating the fragrance?

Olivier Polge: For the most part, people seem to imagine that a perfumer comes across a raw material with an exceptional scent inspiring them to build a fragrance based on it, or recreate it. At Chanel, our style is expressed through a creative aesthetic. It is a unique creative process, as Gabrielle Chanel was, above all, a couturier. She wanted to convey elements of her style and personality through fragrance. For that reason, all Chanel fragrances begin with an idea, a state of mind, or an emotion.