Chanel is introducing its new gender-bending fragrance on Thursday, Boy Chanel.
The fragrance attempts to do what Chanel’s recent fashions have done — mix the masculine with the feminine to turn traditional gender stereotypes on its head.
This will be Olivier Polge’s second fragrance for Chanel’s Les Exclusifs line; Polge says he gained inspiration from Gabrielle Chanel’s lover and muse, Arthur Capel. Polge’s father was Chanel’s in-house fragrance creator from 1978 to 2013 and knew Chapel, whose nickname was Boy.
“The idea, I think, was in the house for a long time,” said the perfumer, who transported an idea from Chanel fashion: making a traditional men’s aesthetic feminine when sported by women.
Boy Chanel, the 17th fragrance in the Les Exclusifs line, is a complex blend of lavender, rose geranium, coumarin, moss, lemon, orange blossom, sandalwood and vanilla. It will launch at Paris’s Chanel store in the Marais neighborhood on Thursday, with 240 stores expected by June.
The fragrance is to launch exclusively in Chanel’s beauty boutique in the Marais neighborhood of Paris on Thursday, followed by a broader rollout in early June to 240 doors worldwide. The 75- and 200-ml. bottles will retail in France for 175 euros and 320 euros, or $196 and $359 at current exchange, respectively.
